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In 1958, U.S. leaders stood at the threshold of an American era in the Middle East, conflicted about whether it was worth the trouble to usher in.
A year earlier, in the context of the emergent Cold War and fading British and French power in the region, Dwight Eisenhower had articulated and received congressional approval for what became known as the Eisenhower doctrine. The United States had for the first time staked out national interests in the Middle East—oil, U.S. bases and allies, Soviet containment—and declared that it was prepared to defend them with military force.
Sixty-two years before President Donald Trump dispatched a drone to Baghdad to kill Iranian General Soleimani, opening another more modern Pandora box, which with cost Amrican taxpayers a lot of money and american military some lives.
The episode and its aftermath are essential to understanding how the United States went from being deeply apprehensive about getting involved militarily in the Middle East to conducting more military interventions there than in any other region in the world. The trajectory of U.S. involvement is one of American leaders gradually putting stock in their ability to achieve their objectives through discrete military action and then investing everything in costly military misadventures, to the point that we’ve come full circle: The American public is now profoundly ambivalent towards neocon foreign policy
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Jan 24, 2020 | off-guardian.org
"You didn't think that one through, did you, @eliothiggins sweetie? You're not in the ladies' lingerie trade now. This discussion is about truth, which endures, is not held together by elastic, and is not for sale." ~Peter Hitchens responding to Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat over the OPCW scandal on Twitter – 2 January 2020.
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Jan 24, 2020 | off-guardian.org
Kevin Smith
"You didn't think that one through, did you, @eliothiggins sweetie? You're not in the ladies' lingerie trade now. This discussion is about truth, which endures, is not held together by elastic, and is not for sale."
Peter Hitchens responding to Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat over the OPCW scandal on Twitter – 2 January 2020.Like many, I've been following the Douma scandal for some time and particularly since the OPCW whistleblowers and leaked emails blew the lid off the official narrative that Assad used chemical weapons there.
This issue is being discussed on one of my 'go to' accounts on Twitter – Peter Hitchens who has brought this to the attention of the mainstream .
For the past few weeks he's been debating the topic with Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat, Scott Lucas and various Middle East based journalists who created and then pushed the false narrative.
In fact, it's not really a debate. Peter Hitchens is quite literally slaughtering these narrative managers – his logic and clear thinking – and wit exposing the numerous gaps in their story and their desperate deflections.
Hitchens position is not exactly the same as many of us here hold – that Douma was a clear false flag. What he is saying is the evidence points to there being no chemical attack by the Syrian government, the pretext used for the attack on Syria. He doesn't wish to speculate on matters which aren't conclusively proven, for example precisely on what did actually happen.
I respect that position in many ways and his refusal to comment on the dead civilians in the Douma images makes sense from a journalist in the mainstream. I think by having a position which is clear and unassailable enables him to easily brush off his online detractors and not allow them to deflect to other issues.
While I don't agree with everything he says, Hitchens has a calm and rational argument for all the issues he covers. This puts clear ground between him and his online opponents who often resort to childish abuse.
My 80-year old mum admires him too. She describes him as 'frightfully posh'. Perhaps someone who might have belonged in a previous age – but I'm glad we have him in this one.
Anyway, I think we can be sure that Hitchens will continue his important work within the remit he's chosen and others will investigate the unanswered questions which arise from the Douma incident.
Ultimately the question about the dead civilians in the images is simply too dreadful to ignore.
This is because if a chemical attack did not take place and Assad was not responsible it seems highly likely that the civilians including children were murdered to facilitate a fabrication.
And were our own intelligence agencies involved in a staged event, considering the refusal to even establish the basic facts in the days following?
And then, of course, the resulting air strikes nearly caused us to go to war with Russia, with all that would entail.
While these investigations continue, I think it's timely to see where these events fit into the way the general public think and perceive wrongdoing and to try to radically to change this.
I believe more people nowadays recognise that the devastating wars in Iraq and Libya and events in Syria were pushed by our governments and media. They can even accept, when you explain, that we've been assisting terrorists to unseat governments for years. But they seem hesitant of taking the next step and we need to encourage them on this path.
This path leads to recognising the sheer evil in our midst and getting out of this mindset that criminal behavior and lying in governments and in our media is normal or should in any way be tolerated. Perhaps some people appreciate this already but don't want to address it out of concern to what they might find. Maybe some people dread the thought of a global conflict so ignore it. But we need to hammer home the consequences of simply doing nothing.
I've been trying to think of an analogy to try to get this point across. I sometimes say to people, we wouldn't have released a serial killer like Harold Shipman from prison and appointed him Foreign Secretary. Therefore, why do we tolerate a long line of Foreign Secretaries complicit in laying waste to the world? Sadly, with this analogy most people usually look back at me blankly so I have been searching for one more complete and rooted in history which people can relate better to events today.
So, here follows an analogy of a character who lived in the 17th century. His traits, his crimes, the political climate and peoples misguided perceptions in response can be compared to recent events and one particular individual causing havoc in the world today.
Of course I refer to Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat.
Eliot ( 'suck my balls' ) Higgins and Titus Oates1. Eliot Higgins and BellingcatHiggins probably doesn't need much of an introduction here. It seems he has no specific qualifications relevant to his role and a bit of a drop-out in terms of education.
Higgins has been quoted as saying :
Before the Arab spring I knew no more about weapons than the average Xbox owner. I had no knowledge beyond what I'd learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo."
But this didn't prevent him blogging about world events and then setting himself up and his site as investigator for several incidents most notably the shooting down of the MH17 passenger plane over Ukraine and allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria. It's now known that Bellingcat is funded by pro-war groups including the Atlantic Council
Higgins has been accused by chemical weapons experts, academics and independent journalists on the ground of fabricating evidence to reach a predetermined outcome decided on by his funders.
His rise to prominence was fast and apparently some media editors now refer their journalists to Bellingcat fabrications rather than allowing them to do any journalism themselves.
Higgins is currently frantically trying to prop up the Douma narrative against a mountain of evidence disproving his conclusions.
For those who've followed his story, it's clear that Higgins is an intelligence asset, set up to take the fall when the currently collapsing narratives take hold in the mainstream.
2. Titus Oates and the Popish PlotOates was a foul-mouthed charlatan , serial liar and master of deception who lived in the 17th century. His earlier life included being expelled from school and he was labelled a 'dunce' by people who knew him. He became a clergyman and later joined the Navy. His career was plagued by various sex scandals and charges of perjury.
In the 1670s during the time of Charles II, religious tensions threatened to spill over into civil war but the pragmatic King, by and large, kept a lid on it.
However, along with Dr Israel Tonge an anti-Catholic rector, Oates started writing conspiracy theories and inventing plots and later began writing a manuscript alleging of a plan to assassinate King Charles II and replace him with his openly Catholic brother.
When the fabrication started to gather momentum, the King had an audience with Oates and was unconvinced and was said to have found discrepancies in his story.
However, the tense political and religious climate at that time was ideal for conspiracy theories and scaremongering. The King's ministers took Oates at his word and over a dozen Catholics were executed for treason. This story created panic and paranoia lasting several years taking the nation to the brink of civil war.
Over time Oates lies were exposed and when the Catholic King James II came to the throne, he tried Oates with perjury and he was whipped and placed in the pillory.
After James II fled England during the so-called 'Glorious Revolution' King William and Queen Mary pardoned Oates and gave him a pension.
For me, this whole episode has many obvious parallels with Higgins, the long-running Russia and the anti-Semitism witch-hunts in the media and the false narratives over Iraq, Libya and Syria. Like those in power today, Oates had a knack for getting away with it. And I guess we can all relate this to Julian Assange – the victims or whistleblowers being punished and the perpetrators getting off.
I had wondered why James II, often ruthless and unforgiving had not executed Oates. But apparently the crime of perjury even then didn't carry the death sentence. The judge who convicted Oates was said to have tried his best to finish him off through the whipping, though he survived.
But perhaps even the King and judiciary in failing in this or not using other means at their disposal, couldn't comprehend the enormity of his crimes. Oates was after all a rather absurd character, open to ridicule.
Perhaps this is a bit similar to people today when discovering that Eliot Higgins is also a foul-mouthed fraud – but they can't reconcile this comical ex-lingerie employee as a menace to humanity.
3. Modern dayIn the past few weeks I've read various older articles on Iraq and Syria. US troops shooting people for fun from a helicopter . The perpetrators are still free – the whistle-blowers who exposed that, and other events in prison or exile.
Last year we learned about a shocking massacre of Syrian children, unreported in the mainstream media . Mainstream journalists through their one-sided distortions of the conflict and silence, perpetuating the myth that the terrorists who carried out this mass murder are freedom fighters.
And as I've mentioned, we've seen firmer evidence of what many of us knew along – that Douma was a staged fabrication as a pretext for air-strikes and dangerously escalating the Syrian war. The likes of Eliot Higgins and others in the media, colluding in the cover-up of mass murder which likely facilitated this event. And for those honest journalists and experts who bring the truth of these staged events to us, smears will no doubt continue .
Higgins and others in the media who lie, misinform or remain silent are no better than those shooting civilians from helicopters or starting these wars in the first place. In fact, they have killed more and keep killing.
This modern-day Titus Oates, and others share a big responsibility for death and destruction in the Middle East and a dangerous new Cold War.
As I say, I think people are waking up to the distorted narratives and misdirections which have inflicted war on others. Now they need to take the next step and grasp the sheer enormity of the crimes and the risks of global conflict if we don't act.
So, how do we achieve this and get in a position of holding the criminals and war propagandists to account?
By confronting them directly and mercilessly. As Jeremy Corbyn should have done over the anti-Semitism hoax. Perhaps we should adopt some of the tactics they use against the truth-tellers and whistle-blowers. I don't mean by lies or smears. Maybe even ridiculing these people and their nonsense might have the effect of trivialising the crimes they have committed.
No, I think it is time for plainer, no-holds-barred language describing these people for the true evil they are – until the truth and label sticks.
We need to recognise more the seriousness of the crimes. This commentary from the usually measured Piers Robinson about the staged event in Douma reflects the true gravity of the situation in terms of the OPCW complicity .
4. The hijacking of OPCWThe cover-up of evidence that the Douma incident was staged is not merely misconduct. As the staging of the Douma incident entailed mass murder of civilians, those in OPCW who have suppressed the evidence of staging are, unwittingly or otherwise, colluding with mass murder."
We need to now apply this strong language to all crimes committed, be it from the soldiers on the ground, the governments starting these wars or supplying terrorists or the media which promote mass murder through their lies, distortions and silence when presented with the true facts.
We need to go on the offensive and call out the criminals and spell out in no uncertain terms what we are dealing with. With the evidence and fact-based analogies or arguments we publish we should be using more commentary such as 'mass murderer', 'traitor' or 'terrorist propagandist'.
This is particularly important in light of events in recent days. The assassination of General Qasem Soleimani has been normalised in both mainstream and on social media. The people legitimising state-sponsored murder in offices thousands of miles away from Iran, woefully ignorant of the potential of this causing a chain of events which could visit our door soon.
Above all, we should specifically name and shame the individuals promoting war. This needs to be relentless. The official war narratives which have crumbled so far are ample evidence of wrongdoing on a vast scale. So, we can be confident in doing this with the truth firmly on our side.
Filed under: Douma "Chemical Attack" , historical perspectives , latest , Syria Tagged with: Bellingcat. Eliot Higgins , douma chemical attack , Glorious Revelution , Kevin Smith , OPCW , Peter Hitchens , Titus Oates can you spare $1.00 a month to support independent mediaOffGuardian does not accept advertising or sponsored content. We have no large financial backers. We are not funded by any government or NGO. Donations from our readers is our only means of income. Even the smallest amount of support is hugely appreciated.
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wardropper ,
No, I think it is time for plainer, no-holds-barred language describing these people for the true evil they are – until the truth and label sticks.
Yes indeed.
I was, however, reminded today of the huge mountain we yet have to climb before it can be normal again NOT to be corrupt and wicked. The scenario was a session of acrimony in a US Senate chamber, and according to the NYTimes, "Tensions grew so raw after midnight that Chief Justice Roberts cut in just before 1 a.m. to admonish the managers and the president's lawyers to "remember where they are" and return to "civil discourse." "
"Remembering where you are", when dealing with Titus Oates and other vulgar frauds is perhaps not entirely appropriate ?wardropper ,
Apologies, I forgot to set the first sentence in quotesThom ,
Hitchens may be on the level on this particular issue but it is part of a wider deception where Hitchens poses as a friend to critical thinkers and then tells them they are helpless and/or can do nothing about it. If he really had journalistic integrity he wouldn't be taking a salary from the Mail on Sunday, a newspaper that relentlessly lied for the Tories at the last election, with the help of the itelligence agencies.Koba ,
As good as Hitchens has done here he's still at heart a Trotskyist he lives a good split and a toothless display just like the Trotskyists he used to side with. His brother went from Trotskyist to soft neocon and peter went from Trotskyist to an ardent Christian Conservative in a veeeeeery short space of time. Plus there dad was deeeeep in with the establishment and his mum Jewish. So .Richard Le Sarc ,
what?Gall ,
Bellingcrap is just another scam like Dupes (Snopes) and Politi"facts". All of them are funded by the Atlantic Council and the CIA front National Endowment for "Democracy". Their cover as an "independent objective fact checking service" is about as transparent as Saran Wrap.tonyopmoc ,
I really liked this when I read it this morning, before the grandkids came round, but I thought some of the comments a bit severe..I mean this photo is of some 40 year old kid, who lives in Leicester, and his Mum/wife/sister or whatever works in the local Post Office .
I personally had never heard of Brown Noses, and I have never personnally succeeded in getting anything I wrote, posted above our below the line, since The Manchester Guardian moved from Manchester to London, and whilst I do love reading some of the posters' comments well look face it.
Even though Rhys probabaly doesn't like what this kid writes – Elliot is it? he is hardly going to come round with a chainsaw, to cut his head off is he? He probably never even thought of it.
He did say he is small fry, and he probably is still a virgin (been brainwashed – so he actually belives the model doll is better. What has he got to compare it to?)
So I can't blame any of them.
There are alternatives as well as Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and all those Dating Websites, when almost everything you write gets deleted.
Just go down the local pub when there is a good band on. Even I can pull there, but I am better looking than both Rhys and Elliot
I Like Girls.
I am a man. It's Normal
Just keep fit dancing and smiling, and you will be O.K.
Tony
paul ,
The prime importance of these endless hoaxes, smears, lies, fabrications and official approved conspiracy theories, lies not so much in the events themselves as what it says about the nature of the people who rule over us and their courtiers and handmaidens in the MSM.It would take a whole forest of trees merely to catalogue all their lies over the years, whether it's the Iraq Incubator Babies, the black Viagra fuelled rape gangs in Libya, the Syrian Gas Hoaxes, 9/11, Iraq's WMD, Iran's non existent nuclear weapons, Skripal, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, or the communist spy/ terrorist/ anti semitic smear campaign against Corbyn. And that is only the tip of a very large iceberg. You could go back further to Gladio, Operation Northwoods, Tonkin Gulf, the "Holocaust", Zinoviev Letter, Bayonetted Belgian Babies, Raped Belgian Nuns, Human Bodies Made Into Soap. The list is endless.
We have been lied to consistently for years, decades, and generations. And these lies have been peddled endlessly in the MSM, no matter how ludicrous and transparently false they are. In the absence of direct personal knowledge or very convincing evidence to the contrary, you just have to assume that everything we have ever been told, are being told, and will be told, and most of the accepted historical record, are simply false. Nothing, nothing at all, can ever be taken at face value.
And those who rule over us and who are responsible for these lies are psychopathic subhuman filth devoid of any moral values or any redeeming features whatsoever. They are a thousand times worse than the worst mass murderers or child killers who have ever been through our courts. The Moors Murderers, the Ted Bundys, the Jeffrey Dahmers, were seriously damaged individuals who killed a handful of victims. And they did their own dirty work. The Blairs, the Campbells, the Straws, the Bushes, the Cheneys, the Rumsfelds, the Allbrights, the Macrons, the Camerons, the Netanyahus, the Trumps, have the blood of millions on their hands. They and their wire pullers are responsible for the death, starvation and misery of tens and hundreds of millions.
So when Blair, or Johnson, or Trump or whoever is interviewed on television, you have to remember that individual is a thousand times worse than the Moors Murderers, and we would actually be that much better off if Brady or Hindley were ruling over us. They deserve no respect or deference or legitimacy. They plot the murders of millions and the starvation of tens of millions – and laugh and giggle as they do so. They should be simply recognised for what they awe – psychopathic subhuman filth.
I do agree with you Paul and of course all you say is true. One of the main problems is that these people have the power to build artificial constructs sufficient for the masses to believe and perpetuated through their bought and paid for MSM whose journalists are mere foot soldiers and wish only to get their pay checks. They have no reason to question the lies and distortions pedaled to them by TPTB – they merely repeat the false narrative:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" – Upton SinclairAnd we, the great 99%, have little power to change things except within our local network. We can shout all we like on social media but it changes nothing until the great crisis reoccurs and perhaps the masses will rise and demand a just and equitable system. Until that day perhaps this little video will provide an understanding:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/rStL7niR7gs?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Roberto ,
The business of the MSM throughout the ages has been to traumatise or at least just generally worry the public with headlines focused on fear, envy, anger, revenge, and hate. Include all five in your story and you're well on the way to a Pulitzer Prize, bestowed on the profession by one of the great muckrakers of all time. It's not incidental that there have been a disturbing number of winners that have turned out to be dissembling frauds. Add to this the fact that 'journalism' training apparently does not teach entrants to distinguish the difference between opinion and news, and the die is cast: propaganda as news.Dungroanin ,
Here is what BellEndScat supporting Rusbridger is moaning about."For some years now – largely unreported – two chancery court judges have been dealing with literally hundreds of cases of phone hacking against MGN Ltd and News Group, the owners, respectively, of the Daily Mirror and the Sun (as well as the defunct News of the World).
The two publishers are, between them, forking out eye-watering sums to avoid any cases going to trial in open court. Because the newspaper industry lobbied so forcefully to scrap the second part of the Leveson inquiry, which had been due to shine a light on such matters, we can only surmise what is going on.But there are clues. Mirror Group (now Reach) had by July 2018 set aside more than £70m to settle phone-hacking claims without risking any of them getting to court. The BBC reported last year that the Murdoch titles had paid out an astonishing £400m in damages and calculated that the total bill for the two companies could eventually reach £1bn."
On the overall perfidious msm he quips:
"Because the newspaper industry lobbied so forcefully to scrap the second part of the Leveson inquiry, which had been due to shine a light on such matters, we can only surmise what is going on."
-- --
Completely ignoring that the Integrity Iniative infested Guardian ITSELF objected to the recommendation of Levesons thoroughly public Inquiry and opposition to a independent press regulator!
It would have been a building block and certainly stopped most of the continued press misbehaviour over the last 5 years.
Neither Fish nor Fowl Mr Rusbridger. More sinner that saint, more like.
Hugh O'Neill ,
Going to the heart of what Bellingcat, MI6 and CIA is Pompeo's: "We lie, we cheat, we steal." These evil filth are devoid of any moral code and have no respect whatsoever for the laws of God or Man. At which point, consider Moses' (how apt) Ten Commandments. There among them is: "Thou shalt not bear false witness". Think what you will of these Ten, but as a moral code, they were quite useful.Richard Le Sarc ,
Would that all these scum could share the fate of their progenitor, Streicher-without the ' necktie party'. Life at hard labour would do the lot of them much good.Brianeg ,
I looked at the Veterans Today link and it all sounds very plausible'However in today's world nothing makes sense especially when the questions arise.
Is it possible to change the signal of an aircrafts transponder remotely. Can the target acquisition radar on the missile be spoofed remotely. Just why did the flight control officer sanction the take off of this plane in the middle of a war unless they were party to the whole thing.. Just what were the six Israeli F-35 jets doing flying close to the Iranian border?
Okay there is a lot of smoke but just where is the fire.
Just as interesting is that none of the twelve Iranian missiles was intercepted and there are rumours that the Iranians were able to take out of action American air defences.
I am sure that like with Douma when the majority of NATO missiles were intercepted by missiles that were decades old, you wonder what might happen when most of the middle east is covered by the S-300 and later versions.
This is a story that has got a long way to run and we might never hear the ending.
Dungroanin ,
Facts are inconvenient.
Many planes took off.
This one was delayed by the pilot 'to remove overloading'.
Reports of Cruise missiles heading in.Mucho ,
For the best info on this, go to Brendon O' Connell's channel and watch 1 to 3 and number 22. You will get answers there.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYaLxbD7Rix3p1rdGY3IMjg?pbjreload=10Also go to the Antedote and listen to Greg and Jeremy's latest offering.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMf1qGR8km1c8vg_dtpzzVQDungroanin ,
It sounds a bit MAGA.The thing about 'chips' is they could easily be identified by putting them in a black box and watching what they do using a chip which only does that!
The whole bs about it's THEM not US crap falls away. Just need some open source simple 'custodian' chip manufacturer to make that available. If it can be made a 'gate keeper' than we are all safe.
Mucho ,
"It sounds a bit MAGA. "
After this, I will never, ever read any of your comments ever again. Get lost!Mucho ,
You talk so much crap. Please, keep it to yourselfDungroanin ,
I ain't saying that is your opinion am I?The bit I watched was him being gung-ho about getting back 'control of microprocessors' !!!
There is a big difference between designing chips and 'manufacturing' facilities'.
Have you never wondered why most actual building of small electrical component equipment takes place in Asia?
I don't care wherher you read my comments- i am free to post what I want on whatevet article and whoevers comment. And stick to facts.
Mucho ,
"The bit I watched ".
Honestly, I am so tired of people who comment on things they know nothing about. Everything you say is wrong, because you are speaking from a position of total ignorance, because you haven't watched the films.
Watch 1 to 3. Watch 22 and 23 ALL THE WAY THROUGH, not skimming. Then comment. Every inaccurate comment you make is covered in detail. Honestly it's no wonder we're so fucked.From 2005 after one google search, time spent on this, 10 seconds:
"While Yona was developed in partnership with one of Intel's California centers, the 65nm microprocessor product is the first to be developed in its entirety, both the architecture and strategy, by Intel engineers at its Israel plants in Haifa and Yakum. "
https://www.israel21c.org/intels-new-chip-design-developed-in-israel/You know zilch, you understand nothing, you make assumptions, you don't watch or read the material, and then in your total ignorance, you spew your feeble thoughts on this forum. Moron
Mucho ,
You define the phrase "ignorant Brit"Dungroanin ,
Mucho since you FAILED instantly in your promise to ignore me – i will respond to your toy throwing out of the parambulator.First just telling people to WATCH something without explaining what the salient point to be learnt – is not the way to influence or educate.
I prefer reading an argument- I definitely do not spend hours watching TV or listening to propaganda by msm / indy or 'shock jocks' – that last was the personality I saw and didn't feel the need to hear anymore as I don't when Nigel Farage and his ilk do on the radio here.
If you want to inform or prove something to me or anyone else kindly post a link to a written piece.
Second, chips are designed eveywhere there is such competence. Chip manufacturing mainly improved theough research in top universities.
The UK was a lead chip designer too.None of that means the Israelis haven't monopolosed tech and own many patents. The fact is the Israelis ARE part of the 5+1 eyed world Empire – they are the plus one. Snowdens whistleblowing makes absolutely clear that the +1 gets a higher clearance than the +4.
That's as nice as I am prepared to be, so finally, that last paragraph is what is known as PROJECTION. Look it up and learn that it comes from your fav bogeymen brainfuckers.
That is some serious self-hate you have going on – work on it.
Take it easy ok?
Mucho ,
Number 23 is totally relevant too, going deep into chips, backdooring and kill switch usageKoba ,
So the mocking of maga is what set you off? Fuck maga and it's idiot supporters great nations don't slaughter civilians for capitalbevin ,
Has this link been cited?
https://thewallwillfall.org/2020/01/19/important-douma-opcw-update-from-prof-piers-robinson/norman wisdom ,
chris morris is very funny has a fine body of twisted comedick works
for all his charm his role is too destroy society degrade
he is khazar after allsacha baron co hen the names speaks for itself an empty cruel tool
never trust a coen cohen khan or cowen or co they cookooeliot mcfuck higgins is not oirish
he is not certainly related to snooker loopy or is it darts i cannot remember hero alex higgins.eliot"s dad is rita katz from site intel group amaq news
his mom barbera lerner spector
or is it vice versa
versa vice
whatever
shirley youget my the friends of the oirish israel drift
so to speaks
or sum suchMucho ,
Brilliant, insightful, logical hypothesis of the recent plane downing over Iran by Jeremy Rothe Kushel. Ignore the video, this is about the written article.The Prime Suspect in Ukrainian PS752 Shootdown: Israel's Unit 8200
https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/01/10/ps752/Mucho ,
For further info about Israeli tech domination, what it is, where it comes from and the implications of this, go to Brendon O Connell's YT channel. Number 22 in his list is very important.Mucho ,
Jeremy Rothe-Kushel is a very important member of the truth community, in no small part due to the fact that he is an Ashkenazi Jew. My personal belief is that in the end, the Jewish community will play a pivotal role in weeding out the evil that rules over us. I wish we didn't have these labels, that we could have true freedom to play our chosen role in our God created realm, but at this stage in the game, we're stuck with our divide and rule labels and systems of control.
Jeremy's style is to the point, he has great depth of knowledge, an encyclopedic knowledge of his field and is a highly astute commentator. He presents a lot of complex information in fairly easy to digest chunks with his co-host, Greg McCarron, on their show "The Antedote" on YT, as well as doing a lot of guerilla style activism in US politics. Highly recommended.norman wisdom ,
i met elliot many years ago
the chap on the 8 year old lap top above
we called him fat face down the synagogue ohh how we laughed
he laughed as well everytime someone said it
such fun
are rabbi one day organised a trip and lecture tour of chatham house the belly of the beast.
we learnt all about how tough regime change was and how difficult it is to do on a bbc size budget.what we learnt was that having are people everywhere really helped
scripted up to speed influencer roles in media in public on track on page working cog like.
a kind of khazar collective non semites only for security reasons of course.
we could work from a very low pound dollar and shekels base and still be very effective.never under estimate the benjamins or elliots it is folks like this that are the real hero of the oded yinon
yes sir
already my life
fat face eliot boy done goodand like all khazar he hates the sephardim jewisher and the unclean arab which is shirley a bonus is it not
George Mc ,
First off, if folks haven't a clue who Harold Shipman is, you're not going to get far with Titus Oats. At the most they might think it's a character from Gormenghast.Second, I initially misread the article and thought that the figure from the 17th century actually WAS Higgins of Bellingcat. And if that seems an absurd assumption to make, even temporarily, it doesn't seem much more absurd than some of the stuff he says e.g.
I had no knowledge beyond what I'd learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo.
The point has been raised that there are psyops perpetrated with a malicious sense of humour as if to say, "These suckers will swallow anything". Higgins with his "education" from Arnold and Rambo may be an example of one of those jokes.
Third, and to end on an optimistic note, I like the 17th century sentencing and recommend we bring it back:
and he was whipped and placed in the pillory.
Dungroanin ,
Admin – a suggestion on keeping recent articles available from the top of the page.Problem: As you add new aricles at top left the ones on the very right drop away! Almost as if being binned into a memory hole.
Solution: allow a scroll at the right hand edge so that these older links are easily available to readers. Only a minor coding change without any change to your front page.
Tallis Marsh ,
I concur! I'm sure many of us will appreciate a scroll on the right hand edge so we can access the older articles. Thanks in advance, OffG!Oliver ,
HM Armed Forces operations in Syria follow the doctrine of Major General Sir Frank Kitson who learnt his stuff in Kenya in the 1950s. Murder, torture, rape the staples of the British military's modern terrorist ability. NATO doctrine too.Joe ,
https://www.youtube.com/embed/0oLfNr4JjeI?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
BigB ,
This is an important article: one of the few that dares to express that Douma et al are not mere false flags they a darkly psychotic form of 'snuff propaganda porn' (including the recycling and rearanging of 'props' that were until recently animate human souls with a lifetime of possibility abnegated for ideology). The Working Group on Syria is part of a small counter-narrative subset – along with Sister Agnes Mariam, Vanessa Beeley, RT (on occasion), UK Column, The Indicter, Prof. Marcello Ferrada de Noli – who are willing to state plainly that this is child murder. Now I wholeheartedly commend Kevin that we should name and shame the culprits and their supporters."No, I think it is time for plainer, no-holds-barred language describing these people for the true evil they are – until the truth and label sticks."
I had a similar epiphany in early 2016. The barbaric of murder of starved and thirsty children at Rashidin – Syrian innocence lured by much needed sweets and drinks only to be blown apart in front of their mothers. Anyone who supports the White Helmets terrorist construct and their NATO-proxy child-murderers needs to be exposed. But what if that trail of exposure leads back to the leader of the Labour party: who had just personally endorsed the charity funding of the White Helmets? And continued to support the Jo Cox Foundation of Syrian humanitarian bombers and R2P interventionists? Which itself is a front for the dark money web of 'philanthrocapitalism' that is the shadow support network for regime change crimes against humanity. This is when righteous indignation meets the dark wall of silence around the social construction of reality. Especially if you put Jeremy Corbyn in the frame.
What this means is the ability to frame dark actors for the true evil they are has to be a two-way flow. Meaning is created across networks, not just by naming but by naming and agreeing across narrative communities. Again, this is not abstruse: it is social reality. Social reality is not reality: it is a consensual constructivism. Significant numbers of others have to be in a position of consensual agreement in order to challenge the dominant narrative(s). So I echo the sentiment that many can see that the dominant narrative – especially concerning Syria – is deeply flawed. But they are as yet unwilling to admit that the depth of the flaw is in fact a tear in social reality that cannot be easily healed.
This is the aspect of social reality called 'universe maintenance'. Doxa is the reality constructing belief set – the episteme of interacting beliefs. The narrative has two main aspects: ortho-doxa and hetero-doxa – the orthodox maintaining and heterodox subverting discourses. In order to truly subvert the hegemonic orthodoxy – there has to be a social moment of criticality when the heterodox is no longer deniable. To reach that point: the intrajecting true has to be believable to the hegemonic orthodoxy. Now we have a third mode: para-doxa when the true 'state of affairs' is not believable – it is easily rejected as paradoxical to the reigning consensus covenant of the true. This is universe maintaining: whereby the the totality of the dominant discourse actually subsumes or repels any paradox as a half-truth or ameliorated, disarmed less-than-true ('conspiracy theory'). This is known as 'recuperation'. Anything that meets the dominant discourse has to be explained in the terms of the dominant discourse accommodative and recommending itself to the dominant discourse. Which then becomes a part of the dominant universe of discourse.
A moment of the true is like a barb to a bubble. It has to be contained and wrapped in narrative that describes and explains it into a consumable form. The full realisation of the propagandic child murder in Syria – tacitly supported by the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn in particular – would destroy the symbolic universe of social reality. Of which it is my personal experience no one really wants to do. The correlations, direct and indirect links, and universally maintained orthodoxy of narrative discourse point to an accomodation. An explanation or multivariate set of explanations that problem shift and ascribe blame to imaginary actors. To deflect or defend the personal self. Because the personal self is independently situated outside the social sphere. Or is it?
Seeing the real event as it happens requires the perspicacity of social inclusion. We all create social reality together: with our without layers of dualising exclusion that protects us from the way the world really is. Who would vote to legitimise the supporters of NATO and the child-murderers of Syria? 31 million legitimising independent social actors just did. Do you suppose they did so in full knowledge that it is child-murder they were supporting? Or did they create universe maintaining accommodations to the truth? That is how powerful the screening discourses and legitimising orthodoxic narrative mythology is. It is not that it cannot be subverted: its just that calling out the true evil has to be heard in unison by large or social small assemblages willing to totally change everything – including themselves. In order to transition to a different social reality one that accommodates the truth. One which will look nothing like the social reality we choose to maintain as is.
Francis Lee ,
My first attempt didn't get through. Herewith second.It seems to me that the internal affairs of the Russian Federation, although they may have some impact on external geopolitical issues, are a matter for them. At the present time the relevant question regarding the RF is as follows: Question 1. Is Russia a revionist state intent on an expansionist foreign policy? Answer NO. But it is not going to tolerate NATO expansion into its own strategic zones, namely, Ukraine, Georgia and the North Caucusas. Question 2. Is the Anglo-Zionist empire in open of pursuit of a world empire intent on destroying any sovereign state – including first and foremost Russia – which stands in its way? Answer YES. This really is so blatant that anyone who is ethnically challenged should seek psychiatric help. In Polls conducted around the world the US is always cited as the most dangerous enemy of world peace, including in the US itself. Thus a small influential (unfortunately deranged) cabal based in the west has insinuated its way into the institutions of power and poses a real and present danger to world peace.
This being the case it is imperative to push all and any 'normal' western governments and shape public opinion and discourse (except the nut-jobs like Poland and the Baltics) into diplomacy. Wind down NATO just as the Warsaw Pact was wound down. that will do for starters. Of course the PTB in all the western institutions – the media (whores) the deep state, the Atlantic Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House the Arms merchants, the security services GCHQ, the CIA, Mossad and the rest will oppose this with all the power at their command. This is the present primary site of struggle, mainly propagandistic, cultural and economic, but with overtones of kinetic warfare.
Similar diplomatic initiatives must be directed at China. Yes, I know all about China's social credit policy, I don't particularly like the idea of 24 hour system of surveillance, and I wouldn't want to live there, but is already a virtual fait accompli in the west. Again it bears repeating that sovereign states should be left to their own devices. After all 'States have neither permanent friends of allies, only permanent interests. (Lord Palmerston, 19 century British Statesman). No more 'humanitarian interventions' thank you very much. How about Mind our own Business non-interventions.
I make no apologies for being a foreign policy realist – if that hasn't become apparent by this stage!
BigB ,
Francis:The Russian Federation is involved is strategic partnership with China in consolidating the Eurasian 'supercontinent' into the world island. One which is slowly being drawn together into a massive market covering 70% of the world's population, 75% of energy resources, and 70% of GDP. I'd call that expansionist, wouldn't you?
Market mechanisms and methodology are exponentially expansionist, extractivist, and extrapolative. Market propaganda is free and equal exchange coupled with mutual development through comparative advantage. Everyone benefits, right?
No: markets operate as vast surplus value extractors that only operate unequally to deliver maximum competitive advantage to the suprasovereign core. Surplus value valorises surplus capital which cannot be contained in a single domestic market: so it seeks to exploit underdeveloped foreign markets setting up dependencies and peripheries in the satellite states. Which keeps them maldeveloped. In short: Russia and China's wealth is not just their own.
Russia and China are globalisation now. Globalist exponential expansionism, extractivism, and extrapolation is the repression of humanism and destruction of the biosphere. It can't stop growing in the cancer stage of hyper-capitalism. We are currently consuming every resource at a material throughput increase of 3% per annum year on year. That's a 23 year exponential doubling of material resources. And a 46 year doubling of the doubling. How long before globalisation uses everything? How far into the race to the bottom will the market collapse?
It would be really nice to return to a Westphalian System of non-expansionist, non-extractivist sovereign nation states. It is just not even plausible under market mechanisms of extraction. There can be no material decoupling and development remains contingent on an impossible infinity: because development remains parallel and assymetrically maintained. And all major resources are depleting exponentially too. Including the nominative renewable and sustainable ones.
Degrowth; self-sufficiency; localised 'anti-fragility', steady-state; asymmetric development of the marginalised and the peripheralised; regenerative agroecological agriculture; human development not abstract market development; are just some of the pre-requisites of a return to sovereign states. Russia 'sovereigntist' globalisation is the expansionist opposite to that. The RF is part of the biggest market in the world that hoovers up as much surplus value as it can before sending a large tranche of it to London. As much as $25bn a year in capital flight into the offshore nexus of secrecy jurisdictions. It's a globalist expansionist market mechanism that hoovers all vitality out of the life-ground. That: I call expansionist and imperialist of which Russia and China are now the major part.
Francis Lee ,
"The Russian Federation is involved is strategic partnership with China in consolidating the Eurasian 'supercontinent' into the world island. One which is slowly being drawn together into a massive market covering 70% of the world's population, 75% of energy resources, and 70% of GDP. I'd call that expansionist, wouldn't you?"No, I wouldn't actually. Building roads, rail connections and other trade routes doesn't strike me as imperial expansion. No-one is being forced to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) or into reconfiguring their internal political and economic structures, as the US does in Latin America or as the British did in India and Southern Africa. (East India Company and the British British South Africa Chartered Company). The SCO is a voluntary arrangement. Uzbekistan for example has decided not to join the central Asian Eurasian Economic Union – well that's its prerogative. No-one is going to send any gun-boats to force them. (I am aware that Uzbekistan is a landlocked country, but I was talking figuratively.)
The EEU's genesis has along with the SCO and BRI has been forced upon the China/Russia axis as part of an emerging counter-hegemonic alliance against the US's imperial aggrandisement with its kowtowing vassals in tow. Russia has no claims on any of its neighbours since it is already endowed with ample land and mineral deposits. China is a key part of this essentially geopolitical bloc quite simply because the US imperial hegemon is determined to stop China's development by all means necessary including the dragooning of contiguous military bases in US proxy states around China's maritime borders.
A distinction should be made between rampant imperialism of the Anglo-zi0nist empire, and the response of an increasingly bloc of states who find both their sovereignty and even their existence threatened by the imperial juggernaut. What exactly did you expect them to do given the hostility and destructive intent of the Empire? Defence against imperialism is not imperialism. The defence of autonomy and sovereignty of international society and the creation of an anti-hegemonic have the potential to finally create a transformative new world order (and goodness knows we need one) announced at the end of the Cold War in 1991. This ambition finds support not only in Russia and China but in other countries ready to align with them, but also in many western countries. I obviously need to put the question again. Who is and who is not the greatest threat to world peace? Surely to pose the question is to answer it.
Dungroanin ,
Agree Francis.
There is a move to suggest that the Old Empire retains a 'maritime' world and the SCO confines itself to the Eurasian land mass.
Dream on.
The Empire is DEAD. Long live the new Empire!BigB ,
Who is the greatest threat to world peace and to the world itself? We are. The global carbon consumption/pollution bourgeoisie. It is the global expansionist mindset that is increasing its demands for growth – as the only solution to social problems, maldevelopment, and maldistribution caused by excessive growth. Supply has to be met by exponentially expanding markets. Whether this is voluntaristic or coerced makes very little difference to the market cancer subsuming the globe. Benign or aggressive forms of cancer are still cancer. And the net effect is the same.Russia and China – the 'East' – uphold exactly the same corporate model of global governance that the 'West' does. Which has been made clear in every joint communique – especially BRICS communiques. I have made the case – following Professor Patrick Bond – that BRICS in particular (a literal Goldman Sachs globalist marketing ploy) – are sub-imperial, not anti-imperial. All their major institutions are dollar denominated for loans; BRI finance is in dollars; BRICS re-capitalised the IMF; Contingency Reserve Arrangements come with an IMF neoliberalising structural adjustment policy; etc. It is the same model East and West. One is merely the pseudo-benign extension of the other. The alternative to neoliberal globalisation is neoliberal globalisation. This became radiantly clear at SPIEF 2019: TINA there is no alternative.
The perceived alternative is the reproduction of neoliberalism – which has long been think-tanked and obvious – and its transformation from 'globalisation 3.0' to 'globalisation 4.0' trade in goods and services, with the emphasis on a transition to high-speed interconnectivity and decoupled service economies. Something like the Trans-Eurasian Information Super Highway (TASIM)? With a sovereigntist and social inclusivity compact. So the neoliberal leopard can change its spots?
No. Whilst your argument is sound and well constructed: it is reliant on the early 20th century Leninist definition of 'imperialism' as a purely militarist phenomena. Imperialism mutated since then – from military to financial (which are not necessarily exclusive sets) – and is set to metastasise again into 'green imperialism' of man over man (and it is an andrarchic principle) and man (culture) over nature. Here your argument falls down to an ecological and bio-materialist critique. Cancer is extractivist and expansionist wherever it grows.
Russia is the fourth largest primary energy consumer on the planet. Disregarding hydro – which is not truly ecological – it has a 1% renewable penetration. It is a hydrocarbon behemoth set to grow the only way it knows how – consuming more hydrocarbons. They cannot go 'green': no one can. And a with a global ecological footprint of 3.3 planets per capita, per annum, this is not sustainable. Now or ever.
So a distinction needs to be made between the old rampant neoliberal globalisation model (3.0) – the Anglo-Zionist imperialist model – and the emergent neoliberal globalisation model (4.0) of Russia/China's rampant ecological imperialism? And a further distinction needs to be made about what humanity has to do to survive this distinction between aggressive and quasi-benign cancer forms. Because we will be just as dead, just as quick if we cannot even identify the underlying cancer we are all suffering from.
Koba ,
Big B sit down ultra! China and Russia rent empires and have no desire to be! If you're a left winger you're another poor example of one and more than likely a TrotskyistRichard Le Sarc ,
Love the nickname, Josef.Louis Proyect ,
This is because if a chemical attack did not take place and Assad was not responsible it seems highly likely that the civilians including children were murdered to facilitate a fabrication.And were our own intelligence agencies involved in a staged event, considering the refusal to even establish the basic facts in the days following?
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This is the sort of conclusion you must come to if you are into Islamophobic conspiracy theories. The notion that this kind of slaughter took place to "facilitate" a false flag is analogous to the 9/11 conspiracism that was on display here a while back and that manifested itself through the inclusion of NYU 9/11 Truther Mark Crispin Miller on Tim Hayward's Assadist propaganda team.
Sad, really.
Harry Stotle ,
Go on Louis, remind us about the 'terrorist passport' miraculously found at the foot of the collapsed tower with a page coveniently left open displaying a 'Tora Bora' stamp – I kove that bit.I mean who, apart from half the worlds scientific community is not totally convinced by such compelling evidence, especially when allied to the re-writing of the laws of physics in order to rationlise the ludicrous 2 planes 3 towers conspiracy theory?
Next you'll be telling us it was necessary for the US to invade Afghanistan and Iraq for reasons few American'srecall beyond the neocon fantasy contructed on 11th Septemember, 2001.
Dave Hansell ,
It's clear to a blind man on a galloping horse from this comment of yours Mr Proyect that concepts such as objective evidence, logical and rational deduction, the scientific method etc are beyond your ken.Faced with the facts of a collapsing narrative of obvious bullshit and lies you have bought into, which you are incapable of facing up to, it is unsurprising that you are reduced to such puerile school playground level deflections.
So come on, try getting out of the gutter and upping your game. Because this fare is nothing short of sad and pathetic.
We know from the evidence of those who actually know their arse from their elbow on these matters that the claims of an attack using chemical weapons on this site are unsustainable.
Which leaves the issue of the bodies at the site. Given they did not lose their lives as a result of the unscientific bullshit explanation you desperately and clearly want to be the case the question is how did those civilians lose their lives? How did their corpses find their way to that location?
Did Assad and his "regime" murder them and move the bodies to that site (over which they had no control) in order to create a false flag event to get themselves falsely accused of an NBC attack Louis? Because that's the only reasonable and rational deduction one can imply from your argument and approach.
It is certainly more reasoned, rational and in keeping with the scientific method (you might want to try it sometime) to surmise that the bodies on site, having not been the result of the claimed and unsustainable narrative you have naively committed to, either died on site from some other cause or were brought to the site for the purpose of creating your fantasy narrative.
In the latter case it is further a matter of rational and reasoned deduction that such an occurrence could only be carried it in circumstances in which whoever carried it out had actual, effective and physical control of a geographical location and area situated within a wider conflict zone.
Again, it remains a piece of factual reality that this location was not under the control of the Assad 'regime.' Not least because otherwise there would be no logical or rational military reason for the de facto Syrian Government and it's armed forces to waste resources attacking it.
Unless of course he buys I to the conspiracy theory and hat they somehow organised a false flag implicating themselves?
I'm sure everyone else here in the reality based community is waiting with bated breath for you to 'explain' how they did this Louis.
I know I am. I could do with a good laugh.
George Mc ,
This is the sort of conclusion you must come to if you are into Islamophobic conspiracy theories.
Umm – the assumption that Muslims DIDN'T do it is "Islamophobic"? Even on your own terms you're not making much sense these days, Louis.
lundiel ,
There was little doubt that British special forces were captured in Eastern Ghouta when the SAA prevented an all out attack on Damascus. European precursors and British munitions were uncovered along with factories within the tunnel complex, itself a product of western engineering and slave labour. This was no propaganda, evidence was collected, statements were taken and everything was documented. Douma was a direct follow-on from that failure and yet, you refuse the evidence piling up, but accept testimony of journalists based in Jordan and Turkey? The "conspiracy" is wholly yours Louis and you are guilty of malicious intent, false representation and pretending to be a "Marxist" when you are a Zionist neocon.lundiel ,
Hi I'm Louis an unrepentant Marxist and I willfully refuse to use block-quotes.Richard Le Sarc ,
More proyectile vomitus in defence of child-murdering salafist vermin. How low can this creature descend?Louis Proyect ,
Richard, such abusive language only indicates your inability to discuss the matter at hand. In general, a detached sarcasm works much better in polemics. You need to read Lenin to see how it is done. I should add that I am referring to V.I. Lenin, not John Lenin who wrote "Crippled Inside".Richard Le Sarc ,
You defended the salafist butchers with lies, proyectile-do you not even comprehend your own sewage? Or did someone else write it and you just appended your paw-print?Dave Hansell ,
Apologies here. There is an open goal and the ball needs to be put in the back of the net:Seems that Louis here is well ahead of the curve in terms of Fukuyama's well known observation about the end of history.
For Louise history, in terms of the progress and development of human knowledge, stopped around a century ago with whatever Lenin wrote.
But that's what happens to those who only read one book.
Sad really.
Dungroanin ,
You come across more as Yaxley – Lenin mr Tommy Proyect – but he is a MI5 stooge unlike you cough cough.Koba ,
Lenin hates Trotsky! Trotsky was a power mad maniac who wanted a permanent war state to somehow spread his specific brand of "ahem" socialism, which won't win you friends! "Hi yeah sorry we killed your family in a war we started to save you but yippee Trotsky is now in charge so stop complaining"! You're just a bunch of liars the trotsMaggie ,
learn to use the internet which has the information you need to learn the truth:Acting out a chemical attack?
https://www.youtube.com/embed/o63VnLJpwuc?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Jimmy Dore hits the nail every time!!
https://www.youtube.com/embed/FLRQSfSKoJo?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Didn't you just love George Carlin, identifies just what the problem is with dicks like Proyect.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/KLODGhEyLvk?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Maggie ,
Here's another Jimmy Dore Vid from 2017
Watch and learn
https://www.youtube.com/embed/MnSAB4qeDug?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Koba ,
Maggie don't take jimmy bore as some truth teller he's a bland progressive with revolutionary slogans like proyect! He also has a habit of equating Stalin with Hitler in that god awful nasal accent of hisRichard Le Sarc ,
Thems White Helmets is always so neat and tidy. Their mammies must have insisted that they always look their best.paul ,
The British taxpayer funded head choppers and throat slitters in Syria routinely committed massacres and filmed their victims. The resulting footage was passed off by tame media hacks as "evidence" of regime atrocities.Koba ,
Death to the Trotskyists
Fuck proyect your name calling says it all!
Islamophobes indeed?! What an idiotHarry Stotle ,
The alternative media, and a smattering of truth tellers are locked in an asymmetrical information-war with the establishment – with an all too obvious 'David & Goliath' sort of dynamic underlying it.The question asked at the heart of this article is how to break the vice like grip information managers hold over various geopolitical narratives, referencing events in Douma in particular.
Alnost reflexively 9/11 comes to mind – a fairly unambiguous example of mass murder for which the official account does not withstand even the most cursory form of scrutiny.
Professionals even went so far as to purger themselves while the investigating committee admitted they were 'set up to fail' (to quote its chairman).Yet the public, instead of shredding Bush, limb from limb (for the lies that were told) rolled onto their back while the neoncons tickled their collective belly as you might do with a particulalrly adorable puppy,
So if we can't even get to the bottom of events in the middle of New York what realistic chance of doing so in a hostile war zone like Douma?On balance racism, together with other forms of collective loathing is the most likely reason why this unsatisfactory state of affairs is unlikely to change.
A collective 'them and us' mindset makes it far easier for information managers to manipulate a visceral hatred and fear of 'the other'.
Today it is Qasem Soleimani westerners are taugyt to despise, yesterday it was Bashar al-Assad, before that Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Nicolás Maduro . the list just goes on and on.
Information managers simply wind the public up so that collective anger can be directed toward governments or individuals they are trying to bring down – recent history tells us that the public are largely oblivious to this process, so thus never learn from their mistakes.Perhaps one thing western leaders, and the US in particular can always rely on, is the ease with which the public can be persuaded to believe that certain bogeymen pose a grave threat to 'our way of life' while failing to notice that it is in fact our own leaders who are carrying out the worst atrocities.
harry law ,
Harry Stotle, .."Perhaps one thing western leaders, and the US in particular can always rely on, is the ease with which the public can be persuaded to believe that certain bogeymen pose a grave threat to 'our way of life'. That's true Hermann Goring had it about right with this quote
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
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Jan 24, 2020 | dissidentvoice.org
by Ben Norton / January 23rd, 2020
Video and a transcript of former OPCW engineer and dissenter Ian Henderson's UN testimony appears at the end of this report.A former lead investigator from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has spoken out at the United Nations, stating in no uncertain terms that the scientific evidence suggests there was no gas attack in Douma, Syria in April 2018.
The dissenter, Ian Henderson, worked for 12 years at the international watchdog organization, serving as an inspection team leader and engineering expert. Among his most consequential jobs was assisting the international body's fact-finding mission (FFM) on the ground in Douma.
He told a UN Security Council session convened on January 20 by Russia's delegation that OPCW management had rejected his group's scientific research, dismissed the team, and produced another report that totally contradicted their initial findings.
"We had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred," Henderson said, referring to the FFM team in Douma.
The former OPCW inspector added that he had compiled evidence through months of research that "provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack."
Western airstrikes based on unsubstantiated allegations by foreign-backed jihadists
Foreign-backed Islamist militants and the Western government-funded regime-change influence operation known as the White Helmets accused the Syrian government of dropping gas cylinders and killing dozens of people in the city of Douma on April 7, 2018. Damascus rejected the accusation, claiming the incident was staged by the insurgents.
At the time, Douma was controlled by the extremist Salafi-jihadist militia Jaysh al-Islam , which was created and funded by Saudi Arabia and formerly allied with Syria's powerful al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra .
The governments of the United States, Britain, and France responded to the allegations of a chemical attack by launching airstrikes against the Syrian government on April 14. The military assault was illegal under international law, as the countries did not have UN authorization.
Numerous OPCW whistleblowers and leaks challenge Western government claims
In May 2019, an internal OPCW engineering assessment was leaked to the public. The document, authored by Ian Henderson, said the "dimensions, characteristics and appearance of the cylinders" in Douma "were inconsistent with what would have been expected in the case of either cylinder having been delivered from an aircraft," adding that there is "a higher probability that both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft."
After reviewing the leaked report, MIT professor emeritus of Science, Technology and International Security Theodore Postol told The Grayzone, "The evidence is overwhelming that the gas attacks were staged." Postol also accused OPCW leadership of overseeing "compromised reporting" and ignoring scientific evidence .
In November, a second OPCW whistleblower came forward and accused the organization's leadership of suppressing countervailing evidence , under pressure by three US government officials .
WikiLeaks has published numerous internal emails from the OPCW that reveal allegations that the body's management staff doctored the Douma report.
As the evidence of internal suppression grew, the OPCW's first director-general, José Bustani, decided to speak out. "The convincing evidence of irregular behavior in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had," Bustani stated.
"I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing," the former OPCW head concluded.
OPCW whistleblower testimony at UN Security Council meeting on Douma
On January 20, 2020, Ian Henderson delivered his first in-person testimony, alleging suppression by OPCW leadership. He spoke at a UN Security Council Arria-Formula meeting on the fact-finding mission report on Douma.
( Video of the session follows at the bottom of this article, along with a full transcript of Henderson's testimony .)
China's mission to the UN invited Ian Henderson to testify in person at the Security Council session. Henderson said in his testimony that he had planned to attend, but was unable to get a visa waiver from the US government. (The Trump administration has repeatedly blocked access to the UN for representatives from countries that do not kowtow to its interests, turning UN visas into a political weapon in blatant violation of the international body's headquarters agreement .)
Henderson told the Security Council in a pre-recorded video message that he was not the only OPCW inspector to question the leadership's treatment of the Douma investigation.
"My concern, which was shared by a number of other inspectors, relates to the subsequent management lockdown and the practices in the later analysis and compilation of a final report," Henderson explained.
Soon after the alleged incident in Douma in April 2018, the OPCW FFM team had deployed to the ground to carry out an investigation, which it noted included environmental samples, interviews with witnesses, and data collection.
In July 2018, the FFM published its interim report , stating that it found no evidence of chemical weapons use in Douma. ("The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties," the report indicated.)
"By the time of release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred," Henderson told the Security Council.
After this inspection that led to the interim report, however, Henderson said the OPCW leadership decided to create a new team, "the so-called FFM core team, which essentially resulted in the dismissal of all of the inspectors who had been on the team deployed to locations in Douma and had been following up with their findings and analysis."
Then in March 2019, this new OPCW team released a final report, in which it claimed that chemical weapons had been used in Douma.
"The findings in the final FFM report were contradictory, were a complete turnaround with what the team had understood collectively during and after the Douma deployments," Henderson remarked at the UN session.
"The report did not make clear what new findings, facts, information, data, or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, and engineering, and/or ballistic studies had resulted in the complete turn-around in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team, and the entire Douma [FFM] team, in July 2018," Henderson stated.
The former OPCW expert added, "I had followed up with a further six months of engineering and ballistic studies into these cylinders, the result of which had provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack."
via @ BenjaminNorton
A former OPCW inspection team leader and engineering expert told the UN Security Council that their investigation in Douma, Syria suggested no chemical attack took place. But their findings were suppressed and reversed
Read more here: https://t.co/HI028MZl0k
via @BenjaminNorton pic.twitter.com/rmaSzWzs5Z
-- The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) January 22, 2020
US government pressure on the OPCW
The US government responded to this historic testimony at the UN session by attacking Russia, which sponsored the Arria-Formula meeting.
Acting US representative Cherith Norman Chalet praised the OPCW, aggressively condemned the "Assad regime," and told the UN that the "United States is proud to support the vital, life-saving work of the White Helmets" – a US and UK-backed organization that collaborated extensively with ISIS and al-Qaeda and have been involved in numerous executions in Syrian territory occupied by Islamist extremists .
The US government has a long history of pressuring and manipulating the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the George W. Bush administration threatened José Bustani, the first director of the OPCW, and pressured him to resign.
In 2002, as the Bush White House was preparing to wage a war on Iraq, Bustani made an agreement with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein that would have permitted OPCW inspectors to come to the country unannounced for weapons investigations. This infuriated the US government.
Then-Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Bustani in 2002 that US Vice President Dick " Cheney wants you out ." Bolton threatened the OPCW director-general, stating, "You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you We know where your kids live."
Attacking the credibility of Ian Henderson
While OPCW managers have kept curiously silent amid the scandal over their Douma report, an interventionist media outlet called Bellingcat has functioned as an outsourced press shop, aggressively defending the official narrative and attacking its most prominent critics, including Ian Henderson.
Bellingcat is funded by the US government's regime-change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and is part of an initiative bankrolled by the British Foreign Office.
Following Henderson's testimony, Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins tried to besmirch the former OPCW engineer's credibility by implying he was being used by Russia . Until 2019, Higgins worked at the Atlantic Council , a pro-war think tank financed by the American and British governments , as well as by NATO.
Supporters of the OPCW's apparently doctored final report have relied heavily on Bellingcat to try to discredit the whistleblowers and growing leaks. Scientific expert Theodor Postol, who debated Higgins, has noted that Bellingcat "have no scientific credibility at any level." Postol says he even suspects that OPCW management may have relied on Bellingcat's highly dubious claims in its own compromised reporting.
Higgins has no expertise or scientific credentials, and even The New York Times acknowledged in a highly sympathetic piece that "Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games, which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked."
In his testimony before the UN Security Council, Ian Henderson stressed that he was speaking out in line with his duties as a scientific expert.
Henderson said he does not even like the term whistleblower and would not use it to describe himself, because, "I'm a former OPCW specialist who has concerns in an area, and I consider this a legitimate and appropriate forum to explain again these concerns."
Russia's UN representative added that Moscow had also invited the OPCW director-general and representatives of the organization's Technical Secretariat, but they chose not to participate in the session.
Video of the UN Security Council session on the OPCW's Douma report
Ian Henderson's testimony begins at 57:30 in this official UN video :
https://www.un.org/webcast/1362235914001/B1J3DDQJf_default/index.html?videoId=6125087582001
Transcript: Testimony by OPCW whistleblower Ian Henderson at the UN Security Council
"My name is Ian Henderson. I'm a former OPCW inspection team leader, having served for about 12 years. I heard about this meeting and I was invited by the minister, councilor of the Chinese mission to the UN. Unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances around my ESTA visa waiver status, I was not able to travel. I thus submitted a written statement, to which I will now add a short introduction.
I need to point out at the outset that I'm not a whistleblower; I don't like that term. I'm a former OPCW specialist who has concerns in an area, and I consider this a legitimate and appropriate forum to explain again these concerns.
Secondly, I must point out that I hold the OPCW in the highest regard, as well as the professionalism of the staff members who work there. The organization is not broken; I must stress that. However, the concern I have does relate to some specific management practices in certain sensitive missions.
The concern, of course, relates to the FFM investigation into the alleged chemical attack on the 7th of April in Douma, in Syria. My concern, which was shared by a number of other inspectors, relates to the subsequent management lockdown and the practices in the later analysis and compilation of a final report.
There were two teams deployed; one team, which I joined shortly after the start of field deployments, was to Douma in Syria; the other team deployed to country X.
The main concern relates to the announcement in July 2018 of a new concept, the so-called FFM core team, which essentially resulted in the dismissal of all of the inspectors who had been on the team deployed to locations in Douma and had been following up with their findings and analysis.
The findings in the final FFM report were contradictory, were a complete turnaround with what the team had understood collectively during and after the Douma deployments. And by the time of release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred.
What the final FFM report does not make clear, and thus does not reflect the views of the team members who deployed to Douma -- in which case I really can only speak for myself at this stage -- the report did not make clear what new findings, facts, information, data, or analysis in the fields of witness testimony, toxicology studies, chemical analysis, and engineering, and/or ballistic studies had resulted in the complete turn-around in the situation from what was understood by the majority of the team, and the entire Douma team, in July 2018.
In my case, I had followed up with a further six months of engineering and ballistic studies into these cylinders, the result of which had provided further support for the view that there had not been a chemical attack.
This needs to be properly resolved, we believe through the rigors of science and engineering. In my situation, it's not a political debate. I'm very aware that there is a political debate surrounding this.
Perhaps a closing comment from my side is that I was also the inspection team leader who developed and launched the inspections, the highly intrusive inspections, of the Barzah SSRC facility, just outside Damascus. And I did the inspections and wrote the reports for the two inspections prior to, and the inspection after the chemical facility, or the laboratory complex at Barzah SSRC, had been destroyed by the missile strike.
That, however, is another story altogether, and I shall now close. Thank you."
• Article first published in The Grayzone
Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @ BenjaminNorton . Read other articles by Ben , or visit Ben's website .This article was posted on Thursday, January 23rd, 2020 at 12:37pm and is filed under Chemical weapons , Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) , Syria , United Nations , WikiLeaks .
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Jan 23, 2020 | off-guardian.org
https://www.youtube.com/embed/YrdXDad0h28
Yesterday the UNSC held a special panel to discuss the reliability and impartiality of the OPCW, most specifically regarding the alleged Douma "chemical attack". The expert panel reviewed and revealed some worrying evidence.
Most important was the testimony of Ian Henderson, former OPCW inspector and leader of the engineering sub-team who visited Douma.
Ian Henderson, the source of the famous leaked "dissenting report" on the placement of gas cylinders at the Douma site, was speaking via video link due to being denied a VISA by the US authorities (we don't know why this happened, but I'm sure it was all honest and above board, and not just petty politicking).
He told the UNSC that findings of the experts on the ground were totally ignored by their OPCW bosses.
He said:
By the time of release of the interim report in July 2018, our understanding was that we had serious misgivings that a chemical attack had occurred."
And added that the final report was a "complete turnaround" on these findings, and authored by a separate group who had never visited the site .
Unsurprisingly, efforts to smear Mr Henderson, or otherwise minimise his testimony, were quick to appear.
Thomas Phipps, a UK diplomat to the UN chimed in with some rather xenophobic snobbery:
Four Russians and one Syrian make up the 'expert' panel at Russia's #UNSC Arria meeting on #Syria Chemical Weapons. Four are diplomats and one an academic whose credentials are unclear. These are not impartial actors without an agenda. pic.twitter.com/y2PSv4QYOw
-- Thomas Phipps (@thomasphipps) January 20, 2020
You'll notice he doesn't mention Henderson at all.
Plus, there were the usual non-arguments from the usual unqualified, NATO-backed mouth pieces:
Meanwhile, the Western press is simply keeping shtum, with the testimony of Henderson, and the UN panel in general, not mentioned in any mainstream outlet we can find.
That seems unlikely to change.
Rhys Jaggar ,
The fact that Thomas Phipps calls himself a diplomat should alert all that he is 'lying for his country', whether that be abroad or if he happened to be based in the UK when he uttered his smear.The definition of a diplomat being one who 'lies abroad for his country' should always be at the front of the mind of anyone seeking truth. Diplomats should always be assumed to be lying, honourably of course, until proven otherwise.
It is what diplomats do, after all.
JudyJ ,
That would be Thomas Phipps MBE . Having worked for over 5 years at Tate & Lyle he qualified for a 'desk officer' job at the FCO in 2009 as a diplomatic 'fast streamer' (i.e. someone with 'recognised potential' to progress up the grades to the highest level). After just over 2 years he transferred to the diplomatic service, working in Manila until 2016. It was for that work that he was awarded his MBE in 2015.When I was a civil servant many 'fast streamers who worked for the Foreign Office or diplomatic service' unofficially earned themselves another job title – w..kers! They really considered themselves to be something special when they were anything but. And believe you me, I came across many in my years of service. Once you had your foot in the door the only way was up as long as you were a 'yes' man or woman. Phipps resoundingly meets this criterion. As I have commented previously, he is clearly intended to be Dame Karen Pierce's replacement when she moves on to spread her lies, xenophobia and arrogance elsewhere.
Yarkob ,
"last minute Visa waiver issues" caused Mr. Henderson to have to give evidence by video link instead of in person as planned.What were they, I wonder an ESTA lasts 2 years last time I checked. Did he forget to renew it before coming to New York? Doesn't sound like something somebody as apparently meticulous as Mr. Henderson would do
Gall ,
Many of us already knew that it was nothing but a false flag brought to you by George Clueless' favorite group the White Helmets since it made no sense why Assad would desperately launch a chemical attack when 1) he was winning 2) he's never done so in the past even and 3)he doesn't have the means to do it even if he wanted to .Some of us tried to tell Trump this but it seems that his head was so far up Bibi's ass he never listened to us and said damn the torpedos or the cruise missiles in this case and at that point gave the finger to the base that elected him.
He's currently been impeached but like Clinton for the wrong high crimes and misdemeanors so his fat lying ass won't be convicted.
Antonym ,
The CIA is not run from Jerusalem, or Washington for that matter. More from Langley or central New York (not Trump!!).Tallis Marsh ,
The truth will out, despite the propaganda-by-omission MSM!On a different (yet also important) subject of the Opposition Leadership Election – good news!
'Long-Bailey backs open selections in "democratic revolution" plan':
https://labourlist.org/2020/01/long-bailey-backs-open-selections-in-democratic-revolution-plan/?amp&__twitter_impression=trueRebecca Long Bailey is showing her principles, steel, political astuteness, and a true sense of democracy! 'Open Selections' will be immensely popular with the membership and is a game-changer which will help her win. This will put the spanner in the works for Keir "Trilateral Commission" Agent Starmer.
Vote for Rebecca Long-Bailey for Leader and Richard Burgon for Deputy Leader!
Protect ,
After hundreds of years of murder and theft, Western Civilisation is now capable of propping its relevance ONLY by resorting to Lies and Deceit to justify wanton violence against nations they dont like.unknown drill ,
"Western Civilisation" – that's a good one, that is ! I like the idea of that. When can we start, then.Jack_Garbo ,
You stole that one from GandhiRichard Le Sarc ,
The comment by that swine Higgins MUST win some prize for filthy hypocrisy, but at least they show, emphatically, that the metastasis has NO interest in the truth, just ensuring his NATO pay-cheque keeps on coming.norman wisdom ,
the chap above mr henderson should avoid country walks with friendly mi5 sas or oded yinon mossad types
and if invited for country supper he should not carry pocket knife
while walking in the country
arm in arm with mossadick henchmen on way 2 n snuff out event
like dr kellyor mountain top romantick snuff walk like robin cook
henderson should avoid all suicided push jump trip thoughts while mountain high
or avoid suicided pocket knife wrist attacks upon himself
while being carried too the designated ritual killing zonecertainly avoid any khazar company on designated chabad holiday
already
Rhys Jaggar ,
Eliot Higgins discussing 'establishing ones credibility' has to go down as joke of the decade, and we only in January 2020 ..George Mc ,
Whatever the outcome of the planned challenge to OPCW officials by dissidents at a November 25th conference, the burden will fall upon them to make a compelling case for a false flag.
No, the burden always falls on those who make the initial claim. And that intial claim is what Henderson is disputing.
paul ,
I wouldn't take too much notice of Soros funded CIA Front NGOs if I were you. They'd swear that the moon was made of green cheese for a few bucks from Soros.There you go with your racist dismissal of the head choppers again. They're not capable of making a hole in a roof or moving a couple of canisters around. And apparently local people (if there are any left in the area) have nothing better to do than scrutinise the activities of the head choppers to report on anything they do that is not 100% kosher.
paul ,
As to where the corpses came from, there are 3 options.
-The plastic dummies they use in their "atrocity" videos.
– The live "extras" who lie on sheets, pretending to be dead, until they get bored and start yawning and scratching their noses.
– Victims chosen at random from the hostages they have seized as human shields,
women and children driven round in cages on the backs of lorries. Or just villagers killed at random as grisly props in their latest theatrical production.You seem to have a touching faith in the "reputation" of people who like to film themselves cannibalising corpses, beheading children, and slitting the throats of prisoners.
lundiel ,
Yes. I saw such an underground machine shop come munitions factory in a video by Vanessa Beeley filmed just after the liberation of Eastern Ghouta. It was full of European made precursors and British mortar shells in various stages of dismantling. All in preparation for "the final assault on Damascus" which was intercepted by the SAA.paul ,
Luckily, the British special forces running the show managed to bug out through Israel after donning the obligatory white helmets.When General Mad Dog Mattis was the US Secretary of Defence he publicly asserted that the US had no evidence that Assad had ever used chemical weapons. The corporate media largely ignored this admission. After his gaffe, Mattis subsequently stated that he was certain that Assad had used chemical weapons (although he offered nothing other than is certainty to support the assertion). The corporate media, of course, gave this claim a completely acritical platform, reporting it as though it was an established fact.Richard Le Sarc ,
And isn' t it illuminating of the true nature of the Western Free Press and its presstitute denizens that this stonking great story has had virtually NO coverage, and that which appears is proyectile level disinfo and agit-prop for the child-killer salafists.Gall ,
Should use quotes around "free". Unless your referring to its use as toilet paper, wrapping fish or lining the bottom of a bird cage.JudyJ ,
Ian Henderson has more dignity and integrity in his little finger than Phipps and Pierce put together. They are either corrupt or seriously lacking in intellect. As a former UK HQ civil servant myself, I am ashamed that we appear to have sunk to an all time low in what they stand for and their willing subservience to the morally unscrupulous.SO. ,
Henderson has probably forgotten more about chemical munitions design and deployment than a little turd like Higgins would ever know.The fact Higgins *didn't* know who he is just goes to show you how well he understands the subject matter.
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Jan 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
uncle tungsten , Jan 22 2020 10:10 utc | 93
juliania #66
I do agree with Robert that the visa difficulties would suggest that the UN needs to find a new home in a country that would not bring such matters to that unhelpful conclusion.Establishing the UN in one country was fine in the days of poor speed telecommunications. The entire Un should be a multi national establishment and distributed across the globe where technical and administrative mechanisms suit. There is no reason for Un to be centralised in USA in these day of excellent communications systems. Multinational corporations and vast states like Russia that span half the planet can achieve these things.
The blatant hoax of the OPCW Douma exercise is simply an insult to the common sense of humanity. The fact that so many children were sacrificed to give gravity to this hoax is simply macabre beyond belief. The OPCW is complicit in a crime against humanity and refuses to acknowledge it. Each and every one of the scientists that participated should give recorded testimony of what they know of the origins and fate of those children. THAT is an absolute priority evidence collection.
Laguerre , Jan 22 2020 15:58 utc | 104
Posted by: bevin | Jan 22 2020 15:38 utc | 103I entirely agree. The really shocking thing was to denial of a visa for Henderson. That undermines the entire functioning of the UN as an entity at least to an extent independent of the US. The UN cannot function like that. It can only be a puppet of the US - and an open puppet, not concealed control (as many here have accused over the years).
Trump is not very subtle, he has wrecked many US policies, by exposing them in the open - for example, the treatment of the EU as a prime enemy. Nobody knew (though they guessed) how much the US treated the EU as a competitor. Now it's declared in the open.
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Piotr Berman , Jan 22 2020 16:32 utc | 108
This is a relevant quote from a commentary in NYT, March 26, 2018 by Kadri Liik (@KadriLiik) is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and the former director of the International Center for Defense Studies in Estonia."The world does not yet know the full details of the Skripal poisoning, but it does not feel like waiting, as the expulsions make clear. Too often in the past, Moscow has denied its involvement in cases that later end up being traced to the Kremlin or its proxies. The result is that its denials lack credibility. Now, the successful use of "plausible deniability" in all the previous cases collides with the Kremlin's current interests and contributes to the verdict: guilty until proven innocent."
Punishment before the proof, if you reverse the order you [do what Putin wants|make Putin happy], the outcome so ghastly that we cannot risk it. The truth has to be declared, and then, optionally, proven. Another option is to just repeat that, say, Qassim Suleimani was a terrorist. And punish.
Bombing of Barzeh as a punishment for un-investigated crime follows the template, duly approved by the sophisticated Europeans from a myriad of outfits like International Center for Defense Studies in Estonia. I would move all of them to Tiksi (check accuweather), a quiet and somewhat depopulated city on the shore of beautiful Arctic ocean, with an airport, a few thousand of empty apartments should accommodate them (if not, there are also former mining towns in the interior, although the may be colder). Cold Warriors should embrace the cold.
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Jan 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
bevin , Jan 22 2020 15:38 utc | 103
somebody@94
Don't underestimate the transformation of residual 'blood and soil' themes in fascism into foundations of the Green movements. They were not simply dissenters within the communist tradition but rabid anti-communists. It was the intellectual traditions and the residual popular support among generations schooled in fascism-often literally schooled- which were preserved and amplified by the wave of anti-communism which came in from America. Like the legendary 'cavalry' rescuing the embattled settlers the US swooped into Europe, when all seemed lost, and turned the remnants of fascism into heroes.Many of those who sneaked out to Argentina and concealed themselves would have done better to have waited for Canada and the States to invite them to come and 'do their thing' in Cleveland, Chicago, Montreal and Edmonton, Alberta.
Which leads me to the point I came here to make: the astonishing thing about the OPCW hearing is that Henderson was denied a visa. That really is shocking and a measure of how brutal, intellectually and actually, the US government has become. It has long been bad but things have reached the stage now where it has become clear that the likes Of Al Capone and the models for The Godfather movies, were babes in arms compared with the likes of Bolton or Pompeo.
When we consider Trump and the key, almost impossibly apt, fact that Roy Cohn was his mentor it is easy to forget that, in a sense, Roy Cohn was America's mentor. Cohn, who got the job of McCarthy's counsel, in competition with Bobby Kennedy, turned the Wisconsin Senator from a loose cannon into a guided missile against the residual American left and, a much easier target, the Intelligentsia.And Cohn and McCarthy and the forces that they represented- the primordial forces of Capitalism- put the fear of poverty into them. It is impossible to understand the USA today, and its role in the world, without understanding that its intellectuals were intimidated into exile, silence, compromise, retreat and impotence as the new Imperialism set about its ruthless work. Look at the late forties, from Taft Hartley (and the crushing of the Unions)to such forgotten but signatory interventions as that in Guyana against Cheddi Jagan (repeated by JFK in 1960) Guatemala and Iran. Not to mention the imposition of semi colonial hegemony over Europe.
All these things have lasted. And Cohn's role in producing them was crucial-it was the bipartisanship of bigotry and brutality and Tammany gangsterism. (An old alliance that, between Jim Crow and the Machines.)
Trump is one of Cohn's kids but much more representative of them is Hillary Clinton, daughter of a John Bircher, a Goldwater girl, a 'feminist'-of the thoroughly sickening variety- and imbued with a hatred of Russia.
somebody , Jan 22 2020 21:00 utc | 118
Posted by: bevin | Jan 22 2020 15:38 utc | 103karlof1 , Jan 22 2020 17:45 utc | 114Foundation members of the Greens were very diverse, for sure. The right wing ecofascist faction left them soon though - they were incompatible.
There is the elementary conflict between SPD/Linke voters and Greens though on industrial economic growth and consumerism.
pretzelattack , Jan 22 2020 18:01 utc | 115Bubbles @71--
The Soviet Union won the war, the United States won the peace... That didn't happen by accident.
The Outlaw US Empire immediately initiated the Cold War as soon as V-E day happened by collecting SS and Gestapo for redeployment into Eastern Europe to commit acts of terrorism, a preplanned exercise. It later held the farcical trials at Nuremburg. Walter's provided lots of nice insight into the aims of the Manhattan Project and real reason for murdering hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese. The Great Evil that's today's USA got its start during WW2, but its philosophical underpinnings are as old as the Republic.
If History is going to be remembered correctly, then ALL of that History must be revealed--true and raw, just as Putin and the Russians propose to do with their historical memory project.
another benefit for the u.s., all those german scientists via operation paperclip. helped keep the mic running after it would normally ramp down postwar.pretzelattack , Jan 22 2020 18:01 utc | 115 karlof1 , Jan 22 2020 19:02 utc | 116bevin @103--karlof1 , Jan 22 2020 20:04 utc | 117Yes, Standing Ovation!! So much of that's now swept under the rug. Henry Wallace was all too correct about US Fascism in his 1944 essay. During WW2, Charles Beard wrote a book that was initially serialized in Life magazine beginning on 17 Jan 1944, The Republic: Conversations on Fundamentals , which was read by and sold more copies than any of his works--ever--and was the last major book he produced. Yet, when you look at the short bibliography at Wikipedia or the one provided by its link to the American History Association, it is omitted--WHY? I used it as a teaching tool for both history and polisci because of its brilliant construction--the way in which Beard composed it as a series of conversations. This link provides a hint , or you can join the archive and "borrow" it as there's no open downloading of this book available--WHY? Lots of his other works are feely available. It's not hard to find used first editions for under $4, which attests to the number published. But it certainly seems like we're not supposed to know of this work as its airbrushing from his AHA bibliography suggests.
Maybe what Beard wrote about was too contrary to The Plan. Aha!! Beard wrote that it was his rebuttal to Henry Luce--the owner/publisher of Life and Time magazines--and his idea of an American Century meaning American Empire a la Rome/Britain--Pax Americana. The mystery gets deeper upon reading the introduction at the first link above. I wish I could copy/paste, but I'm barred from doing that, so you'll need to read it yourself. One can envision Bradbury's Firemen rushing out to eliminate just such a book with its heretical ideas about how the US federal government's supposed to operate and for whom.
But back to bevin and his recounting of a critical historical chapter that's also being airbrushed. Some of us barflies are akin to Bradbury's "Train People" from Fahrenheit 451 , but how confident are we that the stories we have to tell are being heard AND remembered so they don't vanish with us?
116 Cont'd--karlof1 , Jan 22 2020 23:51 utc | 123This is more for Bubbles @71, but applies to all. This is from 2017 upon the release of UN Holocaust files held back on request by the Outlaw US Empire and its vassal Britain as reported in an excellent article by Finnian Cunningham:
"In other words, the Cold War which the US and Britain embarked on after 1945 was but a continuation of hostile policy towards Moscow that was already underway well before the Second World War erupted in 1939 in the form of a build up of Nazi Germany. For various reasons, it became expedient for the Western powers to liquidate the Nazi war machine, along with the Soviet Union. But as can be seen, the Western assets residing in the Nazi machine were recycled into American and British Cold War posture against the Soviet Union. It is a truly damning legacy that American and British military intelligence agencies were consolidated and financed by Nazi crimes.
"The recent release of UN Holocaust files – in spite of American and British prevarication over many years – add more evidence to the historical analysis that these Western powers were deeply complicit in the monumental crimes of the Nazi Third Reich. They knew about these crimes because they had helped facilitate them. And the complicity stemmed from Western hostility towards Russia as a perceived geopolitical rival.
" This is not a mere historical academic exercise . Western complicity with Nazi Germany also finds a corollary in the present-day ongoing hostility from Washington, Britain and their NATO allies towards Moscow. The relentless build up of NATO offensive forces around Russia's borders, the endless Russophobia in Western propagandistic news media, the economic blockade in the form of sanctions based on tenuous claims, are all deeply rooted in history. [My Emphasis]
"The West's Cold War towards Moscow preceded the Second World War, continued after the defeat of Nazi Germany and persists to this day regardless of the fact that the Soviet Union no longer exists. Why? Because Russia is a perceived rival to Anglo-American capitalist hegemony, as is China or any other emerging power that undermines that desired unipolar hegemony."American-British collusion with Nazi Germany finds its modern-day manifestation in NATO collusion with the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine and jihadist terror groups dispatched in proxy wars against Russian interests in Syria and elsewhere. The players may change over time, but the root pathology is American-British capitalism and its hegemonic addiction.
"The never-ending Cold War will only end when Anglo-American capitalism is finally defeated and replaced by a genuinely more democratic system."
The picture becomes clearer as we begin to realize that today's monsters--Pompeo, Pence, Bolton, Abrams, Rove, and others--are the same as yesterday's monsters, although they've moved from one side of the Atlantic to the other. What's currently happening ought to make informed people think again about who the Arc of Resistance is actually defending and what message Trump's murder of Soleimani is meant to convey--it's TINA once again: Neoliberal Fascism. It should also be noted that the release occurred soon after Trump became POTUS, giving a strong secondary motive for Russiagate and the Skripals shortly afterward.
Bubbles @122--AntiSpin , Jan 22 2020 23:11 utc | 121Thanks for your reply. Are you aware of Operation Unthinkable , Operation Sunrise from which the former sprang, and Allen Dulles's activities in Italy and Germany during 1945?
AntiSpin @121--
Good to hear from you! I had a hard time digging up a copy of Life to read Luce's screed on the American Century which I photocopied. Today, a quick search now finds it online here (PDF), while here's a dissection that sets up the conflicting outlooks of Beard and Luce that IMO's useful. Indeed, Luce's views are quite the read given what the USA's become--do note the political party that feared and predicted such an outcome. It's a great misfortune that a discussion of the two doesn't even enter into graduate seminars about WW2; at least my undergrads got some exposure and learned of the two essay's existence.
@ karlof1 | Jan 22 2020 19:02 utc | 116Thanks much for the information on Charles Beard's "forgotten" book. I just ordered a copy.
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Jan 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Walter , Jan 22 2020 12:30 utc | 95
@ Russ | Jan 22 2020 8:33 utc | 86 (about the gas cylinder(s).Any bright high-school kid who's been through the math curriculum and has some calculus can tell you, give you, a range of terminal velocities in air at that elevation. You have to assume that the thing fell in the "best" attitude, and also the "worst" attitude - a matter of aerodynamic drag. Obviously there's a terminal velocity - somewhere about 200 feet per second. There's a minimum altitude above which it doesn't fall any faster because of drag...and it has a krappy drag coefficient. You have to work with the numbers to get a fine understanding...but it's the sort of question you'd see in a university engineering exam.
The mass is assumed to be something like 100 pounds. Do the math.
Then there's the question of concrete quality...it's highly heterogeneous..but you can assume it's top quality, and estimate the rebar density and thickness from the pretty pictures.
And you can assume zero projectile deformation (not even straps torn off!!?) and the hole's not big enough.
The story's bull.
William Gruff , Jan 22 2020 13:48 utc | 98
somebody @96: "But Western main stream media does not report on it."
Of course not. The western corporate mass media does not have among their workforce "Any bright high-school kid who's been through the math curriculum and has some calculus..." that Walter @95 points out as being a prerequisite to see how bogus is the narrative they are tasked with amplifying. The workforce chose to major in Journalism specifically because they had difficulties with basic arithmetic, with such heartless and unyielding topics as addition and subtraction being forever beyond them in the absence of a calculator.
Many think I exaggerate or am joking, but this is literal truth. These individuals of which the corporate mass media are composed get their conception of physics from crappy syfy movies in which spaceship blasters make "Pew-pew!!" noises in the vacuum of space. If it is necessary for the plot that a flimsy canister is able to punch through steel rebar reinforced concrete with barely a scratch, then they are fine with it. If these new age journalists' "contact" in Langley (what we know to be their "handler" or "operator" ) says it is believable, they won't pause for an instant to question.
After all, earnest delusion and ignorance serves the Mockingbird mass media's handlers in the CIA far better than does cynical and deliberate deception, though that last does have a sizable role to play as well. Deliberate deception is difficult and requires some skill, while any American can do stupidity with the greatest of ease.
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Jan 21, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
UN Security Council Hears OPCW Inspector Testimony About The Manipulation Of 'Chemical Attack' Reports pretzelattack , Jan 21 2020 14:07 utc | 4
We have long maintained that the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, on April 7 2018 was faked by Jihadists shortly before they were evicted from that Damascus suburb.
By the end of last year leaked documents and a whistle blower from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had proven that the OPCW managers had manipulated the report their staff had written about the incident. The OPCW inspectors who had investigated the case on the ground in Douma found that there was evidence that a chemical attack had happened. The murdered people seem in videos from the alleged attack must have died of other causes. The yellow canisters found at the locations of the alleged attack were not dropped from helicopters but clearly manually placed.
biggerUsing the Arria-formula , a procedure to have witnesses testify to the UN Security Council, Russia and China invited other UN members to listen to the testimony of OPCW inspector Ian Henderson. He denounced the false final report the OPCW management had published. Henderson, a South African engineer, was a team leader at the OPCW where he had worked for more than twelve years.
Henderson's testimony can be watched here . Philip Watson transcribed Henderson's speech:
Posted by b at 13:34 UTC | Comments (58) the u.s. can veto any proposed action, but at least the representatives had to sit still and listen. they'll probably look hard for some way to kneecap him like the first head of the opcw ("we know where your kids are") or julian assange.
Piotr Berman , Jan 21 2020 14:22 utc | 6
The Arria meeting at UNSC was skimpily reported. RT and some other sources focused on Russian accusations. Google hits only one western report, The Times of London. I skip here little:GMJ , Jan 21 2020 14:26 utc | 7Western nations accused Russia of sowing misinformation ...
Yesterday Russia convened an "Arria" meeting, in which the Security Council hears from civilians and experts outside the United Nations. Alexander Shulgin, Russia's ambassador to the OPCW, said that the gas cylinders had been placed on the scene by Syrian opposition groups "for provocative purposes".
Showing the council a series of slides, he claimed that a hole in a roof did not correspond to the shape of one of the gas cylinders and questioned how one of them had come to rest on a bed. "Now, I weigh about 90kg," he said. "If I incautiously throw myself down on the bed I always break something, the strut falls out, the slat falls out or something else." Yet here, he said, was a gas cylinder, apparently filled with chlorine, that had rebounded "at a wild angle" and came to rest "like a light swan".
Russia presented a video featuring Ian Henderson, who worked with the fact-finding team but differed with the OPCW's conclusions in internal emails that were leaked last year. It also presented Maxim Grigoriev, director of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, who claimed that his group's research on the ground showed that no chemical attack had taken place.
The German ambassador, Christoph Heusgen, said that the Russian intelligence service itself had conducted a cyber attack on the OPCW last year, adding that this "shows how far Russia is prepared to go" in its efforts to discredit the organisation.
Mr Heusgen also questioned the expertise of the Foundation for the Study of Democracy, saying that its experts "belong to the school of Russian scientists that believes Ukraine invaded Russia".
Mr Heusgen said that, listening to the presentation, "I was thinking of Alice in Wonderland. This belongs in literature to the genre of fantasy and absurdity. While Alice in Wonderland is a great fiction, what we heard today is a very sad fiction."
Karen Pierce, Britain's representative at the United Nations, said that Russia had shut down an investigative body that assigned responsibility for chemical attacks after it showed that the Syrian Arab Republic was responsible for a sarin gas attack in Syria in 2017.
Mr Henderson's challenge to the conclusions of the report reflected "any scientific process" in which "there are bound to be robust exchanges of views" before a conclusion was reached. She added: "Someone in Russia is a fan of English literature, specifically they are very fond of Lewis Carrol."
We should remember that the US, UK, and France (sort of - they missed the launch sequence) attacked without even waiting for this fake report/excuse. And the western media applauded widely. It is sad. https://www.georgemjames.com/blog/what-is-the-us-military-legacy-since-2003 I never thought that I would write such things. GMJ/div> Time to sue the hell out of these liars and drag them to ICC by Syria. Let them prove their innocence there and it will also solve visa problem when these liars will feel the heat and stop travelling to other countries for the fear of being arrested. State sponsored terror by those who are pretending to fight the terror!Posted by: Test123 , Jan 21 2020 15:16 utc | 12
Time to sue the hell out of these liars and drag them to ICC by Syria. Let them prove their innocence there and it will also solve visa problem when these liars will feel the heat and stop travelling to other countries for the fear of being arrested. State sponsored terror by those who are pretending to fight the terror!ak74 , Jan 21 2020 15:27 utc | 14Posted by: Test123 | Jan 21 2020 15:16 utc | 12
A War Crimes Tribunal is awaiting America, Britain, France, and their allies.somebody , Jan 21 2020 15:38 utc | 15The Douma scandal is merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the American Axis' lies regarding not only Syria but many other nations (Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, etc.) that these war criminal "democracies" have attacked.
Waging wars of aggression based on deceptions like "Syrian Weapons of Mass Destruction" cannot go unpunished.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 21 2020 14:37 utc | 8john , Jan 21 2020 16:12 utc | 17Just checked. It is outside of the reporting of German main stream media. Same as wikileaks - they don't mention their leaks any longer.
According to opinion polls most Germans are against German military involvement in Syria.
If you ask people in Germany about "disinformation, misrepresentation and absurdities" most would connect it to Trump not Putin. The German government took the extraordinary step to confirm that they had been blackmailed versus Iran by Trump threatening tariffs for the car industry. There is also the case of Nord Stream II which will be built though the US threw everything they had at it.
There is a German-Russian community and they watch Russian media. There used to be a push by Russia to "protect" "our Russians" against immigrants in Germany but after some stern talks this has stopped. I guess Russian support for AFD has also stopped.
It is obvious that Germany will insist on trade with Russia and China. All Putin has to do is wait for Trump (and Boris Johnson) to cut the last Atlantic bridge.
There is a German version of RT, I just had a look, they sound pretty mainstream and relaxed on the disinformation front. Actually most of the non-Western stuff nowadays looks like this - Press TV, Xinhua. I guess they feel they can be a contrast to Donald Trump's post fact era - which Bush's "truthiness" for invading Iraq has started.
ak74 @ 14 says:BM , Jan 21 2020 16:33 utc | 18A War Crimes Tribunal is awaiting America, Britain, France, and their allies
in 2011 the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found former US president George W Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair guilty of crimes against humanity, so they have a head start, but yeah, you just know that these criminal fuckers are shaking in their boots, what with the way things are trending and all. it'll be psychologically devastating for masses of Americans, though perhaps by that time the worst effects will have been ameliorated by all the writing on the wall.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Bush and Blair guilty ... and subsequently Malaysia seems to have been forced to pay a heavy price, namely MH370 and MH17.Bubbles , Jan 21 2020 16:50 utc | 20More counter official OPCW narrative input,frances , Jan 21 2020 16:59 utc | 21"Important Douma OPCW update from Prof. Piers Robinson
vanessa beeley / 2 days ago "https://thewallwillfall.org/2020/01/19/important-douma-opcw-update-from-prof-piers-robinson/
In depth;"How the OPCW's investigation of the Douma incident was nobbled*"
http://syriapropagandamedia.org/how-the-opcws-investigation-of-the-douma-incident-was-nobbled
Brown Noses aka Bellingcat also receives attention for it's slippery ways above.The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Bush and Blair guilty ... and subsequently Malaysia seems to have been forced to pay a heavy price, namely MH370 and MH17.jayc , Jan 21 2020 18:05 utc | 28
Posted by: BM | Jan 21 2020 16:33 utc | 18Yes, apparently the final straw was when the President refused to accept US aid, rebellions ensued and a S compliant and apparently quite corrupt govt is now in place.
As described by Times of London - an extremely poor response by western representatives at the UNSC, all ad hominem attacks and incredulity. This story has been brewing for months, with a fair amount of established detail on the process used to arrive at the published report. To attempt to use the OPCW's own weak retort that it was merely a "robust exchange of views" rather than conscious manipulation, a line of argument long superseded by the collected facts, shows the western representatives are feigning ignorance, and they do so confident that most news "consumers" are in fact ignorant of these matters because they are simply not reported.Harry , Jan 21 2020 18:07 utc | 29Re Pyotr BermanAriusArmenian , Jan 21 2020 18:15 utc | 30Lewis Carroll. How apt!
"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!"
― Lewis Carroll
Corruption and manipulation in western influenced and controlled institutions has become the norm in the West. The public has been normalized to blindly accepting lies by the political and corporate elites. The people are easily kept under control by narratives of fear and hate.William Gruff , Jan 21 2020 18:21 utc | 31Truth and honesty from anything the western elites touch is now rare and precious.
A quick note about the chlorine "bombs" that were seen in Douma: Those are 100# propane tanks. ASME, DOT, and UN standards only require they have a burst pressure of up to 400psi (ASME is only 275psi). In normal operation propane only pressurizes the tanks to around 100psi. Because of this the tank walls are usually made of 10 or 11 gauge mild steel... about .125" thick.NoOneYouKnow , Jan 21 2020 18:50 utc | 34For comparison SCUBA tanks operate up to 3000psi and have wall thicknesses of over .25"... twice as thick as a 100# propane tank. They are also made from higher grade steels and not plain old cold rolled.
Large high pressure gas cylinders are fairly rugged items, but even so I have a difficult time imagining one punching through steel reinforced concrete and remaining largely undamaged.
Propane gas tanks are NOT high pressure gas cylinders. They are flimsy in comparison. It is not surprising that the OPCW team that actually visited the site of the supposed bombing dismissed the terrorists' narrative. What is surprising is the number of supposedly non-stupid people who believe that the tanks were dropped from helicopters, punched through steel reinforced concrete, and came to rest in the condition seen in the photographs. It takes habituated suspension of disbelief of a population perpetually plugged into the boob tube to accept that nonsense.
Wikipedia is fine for unimportant info. I hope anyone who relies on it for serious subjects reads this: https://medium.com/@helen.buyniski/wikipedia-rotten-to-the-core-dcc435781c45juliania , Jan 21 2020 19:21 utc | 40
Also, in the penultimate sentence of Nebenzia's statement, "shelled" should be "shelved."In addition to the falsification of the report, now presented as undeniable fact to the Security Council, b takes note of two other atrocities - first:Robert , Jan 21 2020 19:35 utc | 42"...Videos from Douma at the time of the incident showed some 30 bodies of dead persons. Most were children. It is up to day unknown who they were and who had murdered them. The OPCW manipulation of the original reports of its inspectors' findings is a cover up for that huge crime..."
There should be a thorough investigation of the identities of these victims. I am guessing the atrocities were perpetrated in a school, if most of the victims were children. Was it in this very building? Had some sort of hostage situation been taking place?
Secondly, the building totally destroyed and seen in b's coverage was one which researched medical and agricultural concerns for Syria - a huge loss in itself, not to mention if there were people within. I don't remember seeing news of that, would appreciate a link if anyone has it.
Thanks b, for your coverage here; it is most important. I had mentioned an argument with an anti-Assad person a while back. (Told him to come here and read; I hope he did.) His main point was the lie that Assad had 'gassed his own people.' Maybe I'll encounter him again.
I further think if the UN Security Council ignores this it will take on the same shade of black currently shrouding the USA. It's currently grey in my book.
As I see it the real problem is the UN based in the US. Not mentioned is that the OPCW inspector's testimony had to be given by Tele conference because he could not get a visa to attend. Remember too that the Iranian foreign minister has been refused a visa to attend the UN. Remember that Bustani was forced to resign as the head of OPCW because of vile,naked threats against his family.Paleene , Jan 21 2020 19:38 utc | 43@ Norwegian # 30Guy THORNTON , Jan 21 2020 19:39 utc | 44Thank you very much for this absolutely disgusting information. Sheds a different light on the Breivik-affair. :-(
"What is surprising is the number of supposedly non-stupid people who believe that the tanks were dropped from helicopters, punched through steel reinforced concrete, and came to rest in the condition seen in the photographs."Formerly T-Bear , Jan 21 2020 20:02 utc | 48
Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 21 2020 18:21 utc | 31Agreed. I've never understood why the Russians haven't filmed the dropping of a few similar cylinders from helicopters at various heights....onto flat roofs of concrete apartment blocks.....so that everyone can see the result for comparison instead of endless theorising. You'd have thought the OPCW inspectors would have done this....but no mention of it.
Having watched the UNSC meeting concerning the OPCW perfidious economy with fact, the British permanent envoy to the UN's 'performance' made it hard to not think the 'woman' would make the perfect character to fill the part of the lead concubine for Star Wars Jabba the Hutt, the demeanour, the ethics (doubtlessly supplied by Integrity Initiative), the appearance.Jen , Jan 21 2020 21:35 utc | 53
Wondrous things are made on that small island just off the coast of Europe, and some should be best kept there. Poor Europe, so far from heaven, so close to Britain.Juliania @ 40:Based on other online news I have seen in the past, I think it is likely that the dead children shown in the videos had been kidnapped by the takfiris in various villages and other communities, targeted for being Orthodox Christian or Alawite believers, over the years. If the videos have no time stamps on them, then we have no way of knowing how long these children have been dead; they could have been dead for years and the videos themselves of equal vintage before the takfiris decided to make them public. The children may not all be from the same community or school; they could have been grouped together before they were killed or their bodies removed from where they were murdered and then grouped together.
The children may not even have been killed by CWs. I have seen some online photos of Syrian children said to have died from CW suffocation and in some of those photos, there was evidence of blunt force trauma around the hairline near the foreheads and ears.
The only way we'd know the identities of the children is if their families and communities are able to come forward and see the videos and other visual evidence. That's if the relatives are still alive or still in Syria.
Mother Agnes Mariam el Sahib , speaking to RT, on the video footage purporting to show dead victims of CW attacks (August 2013) in East Ghouta:
"... I have carefully studied the footage, and I will present a written analysis on it a bit later. I maintain that the whole affair was a frame-up. It had been staged and prepared in advance with the goal of framing the Syrian government as the perpetrator.The key evidence is that Reuters made these files public at 6.05 in the morning. The chemical attack is said to have been launched between 3 and 5 o'clock in the morning in Guta. How is it even possible to collect a dozen different pieces of footage, get more than 200 kids and 300 young people together in one place, give them first aid and interview them on camera, and all that in less than three hours? Is that realistic at all? As someone who works in the news industry, you know how long all of it would take.
The bodies of children and teenagers we see in that footage – who were they? What happened to them? Were they killed for real? And how could that happen ahead of the gas attack? Or, if they were not killed, where did they come from? Where are their parents? How come we don't see any female bodies among all those supposedly dead children?
I am not saying that no chemical agent was used in the area – it certainly was. But I insist that the footage that is now being peddled as evidence had been fabricated in advance. I have studied it meticulously, and I will submit my report to the UN Human Rights Commission based in Geneva ..."
The girls may have been separated from other hostages to be married off to takfiris or used in sex trafficking schemes; or if dead, their bodies disposed of somehow. The extreme religious beliefs of ISIS, al Nusra and other takfiris probably don't allow them to touch the bodies of dead women and girls.
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Jan 21, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org
The U.S. was having some success with turning protest messaging against Iran – until, that is – its killing and wounding of so many Iraqi security force members last week (Ketaib Hizbullah is a part of Iraq's armed forces).
Escalation of maximum-pressure was one thing (Iran was confident of weathering that); but assassinating such a senior official on his state duties, was quite something else. We have not observed a state assassinating a most senior official of another state before.
And the manner of its doing, was unprecedented too. Soleimani was officially visiting Iraq. He arrived openly as a VIP guest from Syria, and was met on the tarmac by an equally senior Iraqi official, Al-Muhandis, who was assassinated also, (together with seven others). It was all open. General Soleimani regularly used his mobile phone as he argued that as a senior state official, if he were to be assassinated by another state, it would only be as an act of war.
This act, performed at the international airport of Baghdad, constitutes not just the sundering of red lines, but a humiliation inflicted on Iraq – its government and people. It will upend Iraq's strategic positioning. The erstwhile Iraqi attempt at balancing between Washington and Iran will be swept away by Trump's hubristic trampling on the country's sovereignty. It may well mark the beginning of the end of the U.S. presence in Iraq (and therefore Syria, too), and ultimately, of America's footprint in the Middle East.
Trump may earn easy plaudits now for his "We're America, Bitch!", as one senior White House official defined the Trump foreign policy doctrine; but the doubts – and unforeseen consequences soon may come home to roost.
Why did he do it? If no one really wanted 'war', why did Trump escalate and smash up all the crockery? He has had an easy run (so far) towards re-election, so why play the always unpredictable 'wild card' of a yet another Mid-East conflict?
Was it that he wanted to show 'no Benghazi'; no U.S. embassy siege 'on my watch' – unlike Obama's handling of that situation? Was he persuaded that these assassinations would play well to his constituency (Israeli and Evangelical)? Or was he offered this option baldly by the Netanyahu faction in Washington? Maybe.
Some in Israel are worried about a three or four front war reaching Israel. Senior Israeli officials recently have been speculating about the likelihood of regional conflict occurring within the coming months. Israel's PM however, is fighting for his political life, and has requested immunity from prosecution on three indictments – pleading that this was his legal right, and that it was needed for him to "continue to lead Israel" for the sake of its future. Effectively, Netanyahu has nothing to lose from escalating tensions with Iran -- but much to gain.
Opposition Israeli political and military leaders have warned that the PM needs 'war' with Iran -- effectively to underscore the country's 'need' for his continued leadership. And for technical reasons in the Israeli parliament, his plea is unlikely to be settled before the March general elections. Netanyahu thus may still have some time to wind up the case for his continued tenure of the premiership.
One prime factor in the Israeli caution towards Iran rests not so much on the waywardness of Netanyahu, but on the inconstancy of President Trump: Can it be guaranteed that the U.S. will back Israel unreservedly -- were it to again to become enmeshed in a Mid-East war? The Israeli and Gulf answer seemingly is 'no'. The import of this assessment is significant. Trump now is seen by some in Israel – and by some insiders in Washington – as a threat to Israel's future security vis à vis Iran. Was Trump aware of this? Was this act a gamble to guarantee no slippage in that vital constituency in the lead up to the U.S. elections? We do not know.
So we arrive at three final questions: How far will Iran absorb this new escalation? Will Iran confine its retaliation to within Iraq? Or will the U.S. cross another 'red line' by striking inside Iran itself, in any subsequent tit for tat?
Is it deliberate (or is it political autism) that makes Secretary Pompeo term all the Iraqi Hash'd a-Sha'abi forces – whether or not part of official Iraqi forces – as "Iran-led"? The term seems to be used as a laissez-passer to attack all the many Hash'd a-Sha'abi units on the grounds that, being "Iran-linked", they therefore count as 'terrorist forces'. This formulation gives rise to the false sequitur that all other Iraqis would somehow approve of the killings. This would be laughable, if it were not so serious. The Hash'd forces led the war against ISIS and are esteemed by the vast majority of Iraqis. And Soleimani was on the ground at the front line, with those Iraqi forces.
These forces are not Iranian 'proxies'. They are Iraqi nationalists who share a common Shi'a identity with their co-religionists in Iran, and across the region. They share a common zeitgeist, they see politics similarly, but they are no puppets (we write from direct experience).
But what this formulation does do is to invite a widening conflict: Many Iraqis will be outraged by the U.S. attacks on fellow Iraqis and will revenge them. Pompeo (falsely) will then blame Iran. Is that Pompeo's purpose: casus belli?
But where is the off-ramp? Iran will respond Is this affair simply set to escalate from limited military exchanges and from thence, to escalate until what? We understand that this was not addressed in Washington before the President's decision was made. There are no real U.S. channels of communication (other than low level) with Iran; nor is there a plan for the next days. Nor an obvious exit. Is Trump relying on gut instinct again?
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Jan 21, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org
lastair Crooke
January 20, 2020 © Photo: Flickr / DonkeyHotey On the 17 September 1656, Oliver Cromwell, a Protestant Puritan, who had won a civil war, and had the English king beheaded in public, railed against England's enemies. There was, he told Parliament that day, an axis of evil abroad in the world. And this axis – led by Catholic Spain – was, at root, the problem of a people that had placed themselves at the service of 'evil'. This 'evil', and the servitude that it beget, was the evil of a religion – Catholicism – that refused the English peoples' desire for simple liberties: " [an evil] that put men under restraint under which there was no freedom and under which, there could be 'no liberty of individual consciousness'".
That was how the English protestant leader saw Catholic Spain in 1656. And it is very close to how key orientations in the U.S. sees Iran today : The evil of religion – of Shi'ism – subjecting (they believe) Iranians to repression, and to serfdom. In Europe, this ideological struggle against the 'evil' of an imposed religious community (the Holy 'Roman' Axis, then) brought Europe to 'near-Armageddon', with the worst affected parts of Europe seeing their population decimated by up to 60% during the conflict.
Is this faction in the U.S. now intent on invoking a new, near-Armageddon – on this occasion, in the Middle East – in order, like Cromwell, to destroy the religious 'community known' as the Shi'a Resistance Axis, seen to stretch across the region, in order to preserve the Jewish "peoples' desire for simple liberties"?
Of course, today's leaders of this ideological faction are no longer Puritan Protestants (though the Christian Evangelicals are at one with Cromwell's 'Old Testament' literalism and prophesy). No, its lead ideologues are the neo-conservatives, who have leveraged Karl Popper's hugely influential The Open Society and its Enemies – a seminal treatise, which to a large extent, has shaped how many Americans imagine their 'world'. Popper's was history understood as a series of attempts, by the forces of reaction, to smother an open society with the weapons of traditional religion and traditional culture:
Marx and Russia were cast as the archetypal reactionary threat to open societies. This construct was taken up by Reagan, and re-connected to the Christian apocalyptic tradition (hence the neo-conservative coalition with Evangelists yearning for Redemption , and with liberal interventionists, yearning for a secular millenarianism). All concur that Iran is reactionary, and furthermore, the posit, poses a grave threat to Israel's self-proclaimed 'open society'.
The point here is that there is little point in arguing with these people that Iran poses no threat to the U.S. (which is obvious) – for the 'project' is ideological through and through. It has to be understood by these lights. Popper's purpose was to propose that only liberal globalism would bring about a "growing measure of humane and enlightened life" and a free and open society – period.
All this is but the outer Matryoshka – a suitable public rhetoric, a painted image – that can be used to encase the secret, inner dolls. Eli Lake, writing in Bloomberg , however, gives away the next doll:
"Since President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed [Soleimani – justified in terms of deterrence, and allegedly halting an attack] a handful of Trump's advisers, however, [espied another] strategic benefit to killing Soleimani: Call it regime disruption
"The case for disruption is outlined in a series of unclassified memos sent to [John Bolton]in May and June 2019 their author, David Wurmser, is a longtime adviser to Bolton who then served as a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser argues that Iran is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Its leadership, he writes, is divided between camps that seek an apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam, and those that favour of the preservation of the Islamic Republic. All the while, many Iranians have grown disgusted with the regime's incompetence and corruption.
"Wurmser's crucial insight [is that] – were unexpected, rule-changing actions taken against Iran, it would confuse the regime. It would need to scramble," he writes. Such a U.S. attack would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them upon which the regime depends for stability and survival." Such a moment of confusion, Wurmser writes, will create momentary paralysis -- and the perception among the Iranian public that its leaders are weak.
"Wurmser's memos show that the Trump administration has been debating the blow against Soleimani since the current crisis began, some seven months ago After Iran downed a U.S. drone [in June], Wurmser advised Bolton that the U.S. response should be overt and designed to send a message that the U.S. holds the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people, responsible. "This could even involve something as a targeted strike on someone like Soleimani or his top deputies," Wurmser wrote in a June 22 memo.
In these memos, Wurmser is careful to counsel against a ground invasion of Iran. He says the U.S. response "does not need to be boots on the ground (in fact, it should not be)." Rather, he stresses that the U.S. response should be calibrated to exacerbate the regime's domestic legitimacy crisis.
So there it is – David Wurmser is the 'doll' within: no military invasion, but just a strategy to blow apart the Iranian Republic. Wurmser, Eli Lake reveals, has quietly been advising Bolton and the Trump Administration all along. This was the neo-con, who in 1996, compiled Coping with Crumbling States (which flowed on from the infamous Clean Break policy strategy paper, written for Netanyahu, as a blueprint for destructing Israel's enemies). Both these papers advocated the overthrow of the Secular-Arab nationalist states – excoriated both as "crumbling relics of the 'evil' USSR" (using Popperian language, of course) – and inherently hostile to Israel (the real message).
Well ( big surprise ), Wurmser has now been at work as the author of how to 'implode' and destroy Iran. And his insight? "A targeted strike on someone like Soleimani"; split the Iranian leadership into warring factions; cut an open wound into the flesh of Iran's domestic legitimacy; put a finger into that open wound, and twist it; disrupt – and pretend that the U.S. sides with the Iranian people, against its government.
Eli Lake seems, in his Bloomberg piece, to think that the Wurmser strategy has worked. Really? The problem here is that narratives in Washington are so far apart from the reality that exists on the ground – they simply do not touch at any point. Millions attended Soleimani's cortege. His killing gave a renewed cohesion to Iran. Little more than a dribble have protested.
Now let us unpack the next 'doll': Trump bought into Wurmser's 'play', albeit, with Trump subsequently admitting that he did the assassination under intense pressure from Republican Senators. Maybe he believed the patently absurd narrative that Iranians would 'be dancing in the street' at Soleimani's killing. In any event, Trump is not known, exactly, for admitting his mistakes. Rather, when something is portrayed as his error, the President adopts the full 'salesman' persona: trying to convince his base that the murder was no error, but a great strategic success – "They like us", Trump claimed of protestors in Iran.
Tom Luongo has observed : "Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate begins next week, and it's clear that this will not be a walk in the park for the President. Anyone dismissing this because the Republicans hold the Senate, simply do not understand why this impeachment exists in the first place. It is [occurring because it offers] the ultimate form of leverage over a President whose desire to end the wars in the Middle East is anathema to the entrenched powers in the D.C. Swamp." Ah, so here we arrive at another inner Matryoshka.
This is Luongo's point: Impeachment was the leverage to drive open a wedge between Republican neo-conservatives in the Senate – and Trump. And now the Pelosi pressure on Republican Senators is escalating . The Establishment threw cold water over Trump's assertion of imminent attack, as justification for murdering Soleimani, and Trump responds by painting himself further into a corner on Iran – by going the full salesman 'monte'.
On the campaign trail, the President goes way over-the-top, calling Soleimani a "son of a b -- -", who killed 'thousands' and furthermore was responsible for every U.S. veteran who lost a limb in Iraq. And he then conjures up a fantasy picture of protesters pouring onto the streets of Tehran, tearing down images of Soleimani, and screaming abuse at the Iranian leadership.
It is nonsense. There are no mass protests (there have been a few hundred students protesting at one main Tehran University). But Trump has dived in pretty deep, now threatening the Euro-Three signatories to the JCPOA, that unless they brand Iran as having defaulted on JCPOA at the UNSC disputes mechanism, he will slap an eye-watering 25% tariff on their automobiles.
So, how will Trump avoid plunging in even deeper to conflict if – and when – Americans die in Iraq or Syria at the hands of militia – and when Pompeo or Lindsay Graham will claim, baldly, 'Iran's proxies did it'? Sending emollient faxes to the Swiss to pass to Tehran will not do. Tehran will not read them, or believe them, even if they did.
It all reeks of stage-management; a set up: a very clever stage-management, designed to end with the U.S. crossing Iran's 'red line', by striking at a target within Iranian territory. Here, finally, we arrive at the innermost doll.
Cui bono ? Some Senators who never liked Trump, and would prefer Pence as President; the Democrats, who would prefer to run their candidate against Pence in November, rather than Trump. But also, as someone who once worked with Wurmser observed tartly: when you hear that name (Wurmser), immediately you think Netanyahu, his intimate associate.
Matryoshka herself?
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Jan 21, 2020 | sputniknews.com
Russia urged to convene a briefing with the participation of OPCW Fact-Finding-Mission (FFM) experts, who worked on the report on alleged chemical attack in Syria's Duma in April 2018, to reach an agreement on this controversial case, Alexander Shulgin, Russia's envoy to OPCW, said at a Security Council meeting. On Monday, members of the UN Security Council, at the request of the Russian mission, held an informal meeting to assess the situation around the FMM's Final Report on the incident in the Arab Republic .
In November, whistleblowing website WikiLeaks published an email, sent by a member of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) mission to Syria to his superiors, in which he voiced his "gravest" concerns over the redacted version of the report in question, which he co-authored. According to the OPCW employee, the document, which is understood to have been edited by the secretariat, misrepresented facts, omitted certain details and introduced "unintended bias," having "morphed into something quite different to what was originally drafted."
"We once again propose to resolve the conflicting situation through the means of holding of a briefing under the auspices of the OPCW and, possibly, with the assistance of all concerned countries and with the participation of all experts of the Fact-Finding-Mission, who worked on the Duma incident, to find a consensus on this resonant incident," Shulgin said on Monday.Shulgin also suggested that the working methods of FFM must be improved, stressing the necessity for its members to personally visit sites of alleged use of chemical weapons and collect evidence samples, as well as strictly adhere to the chain of custody over the items of evidence and guarantee geographically-balanced makeup of the mission.
In July, Shulgin said that the head of the mission probing claims of a chemical attack in Duma had never travelled to this city.
Reports about an alleged chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta's Duma emerged on April 7, 2018. The European Union and the United States promptly accused Damascus of being behind it, while the Syrian government denied any involvement. Syria and Russia, a close ally of the former, said that the attack was staged by local militants and the White Helmets group.
A week later, without waiting for the results of an international investigation, the United States, the United Kingdom and France hit what they called Syria's chemical weapons facilities with over 100 missiles in response to the reported attack.
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Jan 21, 2020 | off-guardian.org
For starters, don't be surprised if his "fortification" of ISIS means Donald Trump can't pull out of Syria after all. Or maybe if ISIS attacks on Iraqi civilians/militias result in the Iraqi parliament revoking their request for the US to remove their troops from Iraqi soil.
There's the possibility that ISIS will start a resurgence in Libya, meaning that NATO has to get in there and sort things out. Maybe some furious ISIS fighters will be the ones who assassinate Iranian generals in future. It's much less messy that way.
Or, hell, maybe we'll return to the hits of the 90s and early 2000s, and Islamic jihadists will get back to work in Chechnya.
Whatever happens, ISIS are back baby. And that means that some way, somehow, Mr al-Salbi is about to make the foreign policy goals of the United States much easier.
That's what Goldsteins are for.
harry law ,
.... The US have used Islamic state against both Syria and Iraq, [the enemy of my enemy is my friend].There can be no doubt that the US are going to use Islamic state to disrupt Iraq, just as they had no qualms about watching [from satellites and spotter aircraft] Islamic state travel 100's of kilometres from Syria to Northern Iraq [Mosul] across the desert, whipping up tons of dust in their Toyota jeeps to put pressure on the Iraqi government. Also as they watched on with equanimity when the Islamic state transported thousands of tanker loads of oil from Syria to Turkey, that is until the Russians bombed those convoys, the US must think everyone is as stupid as they are. If the Iraqis don't drive the US out using all means including violence, they deserve to be slaves.
"Sergey Lavrov earlier called the US-led coalition's refusal to combat al-Nusra "absolutely unacceptable."
"Iraqi security expert Kazim al-Haaj said "US Army troops are preparing and training the ISIL militants in al-Qadaf and Wadi al-Houran regions of Al-Anbar province with the aim of carrying out terrorist attacks and restarting insecurity in Iraq." https://stephenlendman.org/2020/01/trump-regime-shifting-isis-terrorists-from-syria-to-iraq/
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Dec 16, 2019 | www.voltairenet.org
Munich, 16 February 2018 : World Uyghur Congress president, Dolkun Isa, and Turkey Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım.
The "Xinjiang papers", released on 16 November 2019 by the New York Times , have been spinned by the Western media as a plan to suppress Uyghur culture in China [ 1 ]. Written in Chinese, their interpretation may not be easily accessible to the Western world. In reality, China protects Uyghur culture, tolerates Muslim religion, while trying to stymie terrorist attacks and the separatist push coming from the World Uyghur Congress (WUC).
China has already published numerous studies [ 2 ] clarifying its policy.
The documents published by the New York Times attest to the determination of the Chinese government to use any means necessary to maintain civil peace. President Xi has called on the police to show "absolutely no mercy" towards terrorists. Indeed, the Chinese leader is up against a powerful organization, i.e. the World Uyghur Congress, which was created by the CIA during the Cold War, and which the US daily disingeniously portrays as being totally peaceful.
However, the World Uyghur Congress, based in Munich (Germany), has directly claimed responsibility for many deadly attacks in China. In addition, thousands of Uyghur combatants were sent to be trained in Syria with Turkey's assistance. [ 3 ] More than 18,000 Uyghur jihadists are currently occupying the city of al-Zanbaki (Idlib governorate) where German and French NGOs provide them with food and health services.
Uyghur jihadists have garnered many supporters in Europe. Thus, lobbyists gathered in Brussels behind closed doors for a three-day seminar (7-9 December 2019), followed on 10 December by a conference in the European Parliament co-chaired by French MEP, Raphaël Glucksmann, and WUC president Dolkun Isa.
[ 1 ] "'Absolutely No Mercy': Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims", Austin Ramzy and Chris Buckley, The New York Times , November 16, 2019[ 2 ] " Human Rights in Xinjiang - Development and Progress ", 1 June 2017; " Cultural Protection and Development in Xinjiang ", 13 December 2018; " The Fight against Terrorism and Extremism and Human Rights Protection in Xinjiang ", Voltaire Network , 18 March 2019.
[ 3 ] " The CIA is using Turkey to pressure China ", by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network , 19 February 2019. Article licensed under Creative Commons
The articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND ).
Source : "The CIA and Uyghur Jihadists", Voltaire Network , 16 December 2019, www.voltairenet.org/article208556.html
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Jan 15, 2020 | www.voltairenet.org
On 8 January 2020, in Ankara, Russian President Vladimir Putin struck a deal with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for a ceasefire in Syria's Idlib province. It was made public before being approved by the Syrian side.
With the United States also having secretly agreed to the ceasefire, China and Russia went along with the vote on 10 January at the Security Council of a resolution [ 1 ] renewing the list of crossing points for the delivery of humanitarian aid inside Syria, which were not those initially proposed.
In addition, the Russian delegation convened another Security Council meeting to discuss the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on the alleged chemical attack in Douma, issued on 7 April 2018, and currently put into question. [ 2 ]
Following these developments, the heads of the Syrian and Turkish secret services, Ali Mamlouk (national security) [photo] and Hakan Fidan (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı), held talks during a Syro-Russian-Turkish summit in Moscow on 13 January 2020. It was the first time that the two countries had an official contact since the outset of the conflict in 2011.
Talks focused on the liberation of the Idlib governorate, where a large number of Al Qaeda fighters, possibly hundreds of thousands, are harbored. On this subjet, the Sochi de-escalation memorandum (2018) [ 3 ], which Turkey has not complied with, provided for:
the withdrawal of heavy weapons, while Turkey continues to support the jihadists. However, it has started to move them out of Idlib to Djerba (Tunisia), and onwards to Tripoli (Libya), where the United States wishes to rekindle the war.
Also on the agenda was the fight against the Kurdish terrorists of the PKK/YPG. On this point, Turkey requested the revision of the Adana Secret Agreement (1998) [ 4 ], which was hammered out during the Cold War, when the Kurdish organizations identified themselves as Marxist-Leninist and were turned towards the Soviet Union. They are now anarchists and work with NATO. The Agreement recognized Turkey's right to guarantee its security, granting it access to a strip of Syrian territory corresponding to the range of the artillery in possession of the Kurdish armed groups at the time. Article licensed under Creative Commons
The articles on Voltaire Network may be freely reproduced provided the source is cited, their integrity is respected and they are not used for commercial purposes (license CC BY-NC-ND ).
Source : "Russia offers deal to Syria and Turkey", Voltaire Network , 15 January 2020, www.voltairenet.org/article208911.html
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Jan 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
fleur de lis , 26 minutes ago link
Dragon HAwk , 27 minutes ago linkLangley employees gone wild.
There is only one cure.
Einstein101 , 36 minutes ago linkSo what did the stewardesses look like Inquiring Minds want to Know?
dogismycopilot , 37 minutes ago linkThe guys that Erdogan supports in Libya are extremist Muslims that set the dark Islam's Sharia laws as the base of their judicial system. Same as other extreme Muslim regimes like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Iranian women & girls as young as 9 who don't wear hijab face jail
Ajax_USB_Port_Repair_Service_ , 38 minutes ago linkFor our frequent fliers who are members of our "Chopping Heads and Eating Livers of Infidels" Afriqiyah Airways is a code share flight with Turkish Airlines. Also, remember your points can be used in Paradise to rent hotel rooms for you and your 72 virgins.
Turkish Airlines. The airline of choice for Jihadis.
(satire)
ImTalkinfullCs , 39 minutes ago linkIf there were flight attendants (male or female), I bet they were groped.
Joe Plane , 43 minutes ago linkI'm sure the CIA has sponsored this campaign to lock down oil fields for Israel on the American taxpayers dime.
Blankone , 49 minutes ago linkThose are anything but rebels. Simply head choppers and Erdogan's cannon fodder.
petroglyph , 20 minutes ago linkA little is being left out:
" Libyan Islamists backed by the West toppled Gaddafi and destroyed much of the country in the 2011 war. "
1 They were not Libyan's they were insurgents, for the most part.
2 They were not just backed. Libya was toppled due to the US/France declaring a no fly zone over Libya. At least it was no fly for Libya's military.
3 The US/France and others bombed the Libyan military.
4 The US did not just support them. The organized them, supplied them, mobilized them into Libya and so on.
NeitherStirredNorShaken , 50 minutes ago linkRemember the insurgents paused the killing long enough to start up a central bank, in the middle of a war! If that doesn't make the general public curious about who is doing all the *******, they are to incurious to save.
Where did Gadaffi's gold go? 86 tons didn't leave in a Toyota Hilux.
Wahooo , 58 minutes ago linkErdogen hasn't been hiding anything even as far back as his ISIS caravans to Syria for oil for gold scam he was running. He's threatened to take over the nuclear weapons as Incirlik at least twice. He's playing Putin because it gives him leverage against NATO. He's criminally in Syria and now Libya and nobody's calling him on it. Putin is actually capitulating and coddling Erdogan. Erdogan's at least as much of an international war criminal, terrorist, mass murdered as the last five Presidents so why is he still in office let alone still alive?
monty42 , 58 minutes ago linkPrince is jealous and pissed.
wetwipe , 1 hour ago linkOddly, like in Syria, the US set up Libya, and the Russians and Turks are claiming to resolve what chaos was created by the empire. Looks stage produced. In the Syrian case, Turkey was aiding and abetting "ISIS" and then the script flipped to Russian ally, and they invaded Syria and still occupy their territory. The empire achieves their goals, another crushed and dependent nation, resources stolen, their defenses exhausted, while assigning political rebuilding to their Russian and NATO partners.
Who gets victimized out of all involved? The Libyans and the Syrians.
gay troll , 1 hour ago linkIn the end.... no matter what side they fight on..... they always seem to aid and abet Israel in the long run..... Funny that.
-WetWipe
Einstein101 , 1 hour ago linkJihadis are freedom fighters and militias are terrorists. Got it?
monty42 , 1 hour ago linkAnd yet look who's sending actual jihadists into the already war-ravaged country on comfortable commercial jets
The Sultan Erdogan is playing with fire and he will get burned, I'm quite sure about it.
More NATO shenanigans. Look back to when the US regime/zionist empire attacked Libya, sending in the airforce while their Al-CIA-da provided the ground force, and after they sodomized, tortured, and murdered the 70 year old Gaddafi, as well as his son's family, including grandchildren, they reported it openly that those mercenaries were being sent to Syria. When the average person is too mentally damaged by propaganda to realize what they're looking at, the rulers probably enjoy putting it out in the open. I bet they get tingles every time they fool people.
Operations in Syria wrapping up, so now back to Libya. It's like sequels in one of their hollywood productions.
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Jan 19, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
J S Bach , 7 minutes ago link
Vernon_Dent , 9 minutes ago link10,000 virgins anxiously await the downing of this jet of jihadists.
dogismycopilot , 37 minutes ago linkJoin ISIS and see the world. The few, the proud.
For our frequent fliers who are members of our "Chopping Heads and Eating Livers of Infidels" Afriqiyah Airways is a code share flight with Turkish Airlines. Also, remember your points can be used in Paradise to rent hotel rooms for you and your 72 virgins.
Turkish Airlines. The airline of choice for Jihadis.
(satire)
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Jan 12, 2020 | angrybearblog.com
likbez , January 12, 2020 5:30 pm
Everyone keeps dancing around it: Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani was on the way to see him with a reply to a Saudi peace proposal. Who profits from Peace? Who does not?
The killing of Soleimani, while a tragic even with far reaching consequences, is just an illustration of the general rule: MIC does not profit from peace. And MIC dominates any national security state, into which the USA was transformed by the technological revolution on computers and communications, as well as the events of 9/11.
The USA government can be viewed as just a public relations center for MIC. That's why Trump/Pompeo/Esper/Pence gang position themselves as rabid neocons, which means MIC lobbyists in order to hold their respective positions. There is no way out of this situation. This is a classic Catch 22 trap.
The fact that a couple of them are also "Rapture" obsessed religious bigots means that the principle of separation of church and state does no matter when MIC interests are involved.
The health of MIC requires maintaining an inflated defense budget at all costs. Which, in turn, drives foreign wars and the drive to capture other nations' resources to compensate for MIC appetite. The drive which is of course closely allied with Wall Street interests (disaster capitalism.)
In such conditions fake "imminent threat" assassinations necessarily start happening. Although the personality of Pompeo and the fact that he is a big friend of the current head of Mossad probably played some role.
It's really funny that Trump (probably with the help of his "reference group," which includes Adelson and Kushner), managed to appoint as the top US diplomat a person who was trained as a mechanic engineer and specialized as a tank repair mechanic. And who was a long-time military contractor. So it is quite natural that he represents interests of MIC.
IMHO under Trump/Pompeo/Esper trio some kind of additional skirmishes with Iran are a real possibility: they are necessary to maintain the current inflated level of defense spending.
State of the US infrastructure, the actual level of unemployment (U6 is ~7% which some neolibs call full employment ;-), and the level of poverty of the bottom 33% of the USA population be damned. Essentially the bottom 33% is the third world country within the USA.
"If you make more than $15,000 (roughly the annual salary of a minimum-wage employee working 40 hours per week), you earn more than 32.2% of Americans
The 894 people that earn more than $20 million make more than 99.99989% of Americans, and are compensated a cumulative $37,009,979,568 per year. "
( https://www.huffpost.com/entry/income-inequality-crisis_n_4221012 )
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Jan 07, 2020 | fpif.org
The Syrian civil war, which has been raging since 2011, is one of the worst tragedies of the early twenty-first century. Approximately half a million people have died, about six million people have fled the country, and another six million people remain internally displaced. Much of the country lies in ruins, perhaps never again to recover.
The war is also far from over. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been gaining momentum, but his regime has failed to recapture many parts of the country. Multiple foreign powers remain active in Syria, including Iran, Russia, Turkey, Israel, and the United States. In the northwest, Idlib Province is dominated by tens of thousands of Islamist militants, many of whom are active in al-Qaeda-style terrorist organizations.
"It's a kind of conflict where the kindling is sufficient for it to burn for decade after decade and continue to be an engine of jihadism and instability for the entire region and beyond," a senior State Department official said early last year.
The leaders of the United States have called for a political settlement, but they have played a central role in fueling the conflict. As they have tried to oust Assad, they have settled on a strategy of stalemate , keeping the war going as a means of pressuring the Syrian leader into relinquishing power.
The Obama administration, which designed the strategy, spent years providing Islamist militants with just enough support to keep them fighting the Assad regime but not enough support for them to overthrow the government.
"What we're trying to do is to make sure the moderate opposition continues to stay strong, puts the pressure on the regime," CIA Director John Brennan explained during the administration's final year in office. "We don't want the Syrian government to collapse. That's the last thing we want to do."
Administration officials feared that if the rebels overthrew the government, the country would implode, making it into a center of Islamist extremism and terrorism. They wanted Assad gone, but they did not want the country to become another Libya , which had devolved into a bitter civil war after the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
"We have huge interests because of the stability of the region, because of the need to fight against extremism, the need to prevent the country from breaking up and having a negative impact on all of the neighborhood," then-Secretary of State John Kerry said .
Sharing these concerns, the Trump administration ended support to the rebels but turned to other forms of leverage. For the most part, the Trump administration has been exploiting the areas outside of the Assad regime's control, trying to prevent the regime from reclaiming those areas and reestablishing its authority.
"Bashar al-Assad can think he's won the war, but right now he holds on to approximately half the territory of Syria," James Jeffrey, the administration's special envoy for Syria, remarked in 2018. "He's sitting on a cadaver state."
This "cadaver state," as Jeffrey described it, provides the guiding vision for the Trump administration's strategy in Syria. To keep pressure on Assad, the Trump administration is trying to preserve the cadaver state, keeping Syria dead and dismembered until Assad steps down from power. Implementing its own version of the stalemate strategy, the Trump administration wants to achieve something morticians might call the embalming of Syria.
Keeping Syria Dismembered
The civil war has divided Syria into several areas of control . Although the Assad regime controls much of central Syria and the capital in Damascus, other groups control large areas in the northwest, northeast, and south.
In the northwest, the opposition controls Idlib Province, its last and largest stronghold. Since 2015, an al-Qaeda offshoot called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has dominated the area, using it to organize resistance to the Assad government. Early last year, HTS took administrative control of the region.
Some U.S. officials say the province is now home to one of the largest concentrations of terrorists in the world. They are particularly concerned about an al-Qaeda branch called Hurras al-Din , which could be plotting attacks against the West. Perhaps the strongest symbol of what has happened to the area is that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, was found hiding there during the U.S. raid that resulted in his death last year.
"There is no dispute that Idlib has become a hornet's nest of multiple terrorist organizations," Defense Department official Robert Karem told Congress in 2018.
Although the Assad regime has been working with Russia in an ongoing military campaign to retake control of the terrorist stronghold, the Trump administration has been trying to slow the attack. Administration officials argue that a major offensive will create a humanitarian catastrophe . More than three million people live in the province, and many of them are refugees from other parts of Syria.
The bigger fear in Washington is that Assad's military campaign will succeed in destroying the terrorist groups. Although U.S. forces have taken several actions of their own against them, U.S. officials want the militants to keep pressure on Assad. When the Syrian government attempted to retake control of the area in 2018, Jeffrey warned that a Syrian victory "would have meant essentially the end of the armed resistance to the Syrian Government."
As the Trump administration has sought to prevent the Syrian government from retaking Idlib, it has been pursuing a similar objective in Rojava, the Kurdish-led area in the northeast. Since the war began, Kurdish militias have controlled the northeastern part of the country, benefiting from Assad's decision early in the war to withdraw forces and send them elsewhere.
After Assad's forces left, the Kurds faced a major challenge from the Islamic State, which began conquering large parts of central Syria. Once the Islamic State began moving into Kurdish areas, the Kurds put up effective resistance, notably in Kobani from late 2014 to early 2015.
Impressed by the Kurdish resistance, the Obama administration began partnering with the Kurds, helping them fight the Islamic State. With U.S. support, the Kurds defeated the Islamic State and secured control of the northeast. Leading a major social revolution , they started creating an autonomous confederation of cantons outside of the control of the Syrian government.
Officials in Washington, who repeatedly praised the Kurds for their bravery against the Islamic State, came to value them even more for their control over northeastern Syria. In their view, the Kurds had acquired significant leverage over Assad.
"This area accounts for roughly one-third of the country east of the Euphrates River and is the United States' greatest single point of leverage in Syria," a 2019 report by the congressionally mandated Syria Study Group (SSG) stated.
Although Trump seemingly abandoned this leverage when he began withdrawing U.S. forces from the area in October, administration officials persuaded him to keep nearly a thousand U.S. troops inside the country. The soldiers may not be able to regain control of the bases they lost to Turkish, Russian, and Syrian forces, but they continue to control strategically important oil fields.
U.S. control provides " a good negotiating leverage point ," according to Gen. Joseph Votel, a former commander of U.S. Central Command.
In the meantime, the Trump administration has been maintaining another significant leverage point in the southern part of Syria, where it keeps about a hundred U.S. soldiers stationed at the al-Tanf military base. "I think U.S. officials and other officials around the region consider the U.S. presence at Al-Tanf to be of strategic importance," SSG co-chair Michael Singh told Congress last year. It is useful "for maintaining a kind of presence in that kind of swath of Syria."
Keeping Syria Dead
As the Trump administration has kept Syria divided and broken, it has made a major effort to prevent the Assad regime from reviving the areas it does control. Using a mix of economic and military power, the Trump administration has made it impossible for the country to recover under Assad's leadership.
For years, U.S. sanctions have kept Syria weakened and isolated. By maintaining the comprehensive set of sanctions that previous administrations had already imposed on Syria, the Trump administration has kept the country under what is essentially a full economic embargo.
According to the Treasury Department, the U.S. sanctions regime is " one of the most comprehensive sanctions programs " administered by the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which implements and enforces U.S. sanctions.
Adding to the economic pressure, the Trump administration has also been blocking reconstruction aid to Syria. Despite the fact that the war has left countless people homeless, administration officials actively discourage the international community from directing any kind of reconstruction assistance to areas under Assad's control.
The withholding of funds is one of the Trump administration's "potent levers" over Assad, State Department official David Satterfield told Congress in 2018.
Administration officials even acknowledge that they are trying to prevent the country from recovering. Destroyed parts of the country are "going to stay part of rubble in a graveyard until the international community sees some kind of movement towards our list of issues and answers and policies," a senior State Department official said in November.
Taking more direct action, the United States and its allies have also been carrying out airstrikes against Syrian infrastructure. Once in April 2017 and again in April 2018 , the Trump administration launched missile attacks against Syria, insisting that they were a necessary response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime.
At one point, Trump even considered assassinating Assad, saying " Let's fucking kill him! " Then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the president that he would look into it, but Trump's national security team decided against it, arguing for airstrikes instead.
Also favoring airstrikes, the Israeli government has carried out hundreds of attacks inside Syria. Its targets have included weapons convoys, Syrian infrastructure, Iranian forces, and Iranian infrastructure. Both Assad and the Iranians "have Israel to contend with in basically a silent war in the skies and on the ground in Syria," Jeffrey told Congress last year.
The Future of a Failed Strategy
From one perspective, the Trump administration appears to be achieving its goals in Syria. By keeping the country permanently weakened, it has prevented Assad from winning the war.
From another perspective, however, the Trump administration has failed. Not only has it been unable to pressure Assad into leaving office, but it has made no progress in convincing Assad to hold meaningful negotiations with the rebels. The only thing the Trump administration has done is prolonged the war, causing more death, destruction, and misery.
"We failed, and the failure continues," former U.S. official Anthony Blinken said in 2018.
During a congressional hearing last September, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said that "it's time for us to admit that our policy in Syria, over the course of two administrations, has been a failure."
Regardless, the Trump administration has continued implementing its own version of the stalemate strategy. When it was facing widespread criticism last year over its decision to betray the Kurds, Jeffrey reassured Congress that the United States maintains significant leverage over Assad.
"We had the leverage of a totally broken state, which is what we still have today," Jeffrey said. The war is "stalemated" and the country remains "basically a pile of rubble," he added. "I think that it's open to question whether Assad personally is going to lead that country indefinitely."
Indeed, the morticians in the Trump administration remain convinced that they can oust Assad. All they need to do, they believe, is keep the war stalemated, keep the country a pile of rubble, and keep Syria dead and dismembered, no matter the costs to the Syrian people. Share this:
Edward Hunt writes about war and empire. He has a PhD in American Studies from the College of William & Mary.
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
BM , Dec 31 2019 17:18 utc | 15
B, under the "major stories covered" title you should include Skripal, about which you wrote many important articles; I believe ultimately - like OPCW and Russiagate - it will prove to be history-making event in terms of impact on public perceptions of media and the ability of the media to control public opinion. Probably eventually whistleblowers will come forward like the OPCW, and only thin will it have it's maximum impact.(Well, the original event was 2018 not 2019, but some of the reports were in 2019 anyway)
BM , Dec 31 2019 17:36 utc | 20
My predictions on these issue for next year are:
...
Mainstream media have suppressed all news about the OPCW scandal. This will only change if major new evidence comes to light.That is if the MSM get their way! Maybe I am being overoptimistic, but Russia - as a permanent member of the UNSC and a member of the OPCW - will do everything in it's powers to pursue this matter, and it seems quite possible they will be able to force it onto the main agenda within 2020. If that happens it will be impossible for the MSM to push it under the rug.
The other aspect it is that the MSM ability to suppress this news is dependent on behaviour of the MSM community in its totality, and the relationship to reader plausibility. There are a few factors that could influence this independently of major new evidence, such as the behaviour of a few outlier MSM's that decide to release information (and whether or not that information then takes off in the public consciousness); pressure that could build up in social media calling for the MSM to respond and attacking MSM credibility; or other forms of pressure from the public calling on the MSM to respond. It is therefore a dynamic that is not entirely predictable.
Both of the above are distinct from the emergence of new major evidence, although both cases would seem likely to provoke new revelations in turn.
What determines whether one MSM decides to break the pack and publish news on OPCW? Well, for one thing, MoA articles can influence individual journalists and individual editors!
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Jan 03, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Robert Fisk via The Independent,
In the very early spring of this year, I gave a lecture to European military personnel interested in the Middle East. It was scarcely a year since Bashar al-Assad's alleged use of chlorine gas against the civilian inhabitants of the Damascus suburb of Douma on 7 April 2018, in which 43 people were said to have been killed.
Few present had much doubt that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which represents 193 member states around the world, would soon confirm in a final report that Assad was guilty of a war crime which had been condemned by Donald Trump, Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May.
But at the end of my talk, a young Nato officer who specialises in chemical weapons – he was not British – sought me out for a private conversation.
"The OPCW are not going to admit all they know," he said. "They've already censored their own documents."
I could not extract any more from him. He smiled and walked away, leaving me to guess what he was talking about. If Nato had doubts about the OPCW, this was a very serious matter.
When it published its final report in March this year, the OPCW said that testimony, environmental and biomedical samples and toxicological and ballistic analyses provided "reasonable grounds" that "the use of a toxic chemical had taken place" in Douma which contained "reactive chlorine".
The US, Britain and France, which launched missile attacks on Syrian military sites in retaliation for Douma – before any investigation had taken place – thought themselves justified. The OPCW's report was splashed across headlines around the world – to the indignation of Russia, Assad's principal military ally, which denied the validity of the publication.
Then, in mid-May 2019, came news of a confidential report by OPCW South African ballistics inspector Ian Henderson – a document which the organisation excluded from its final report – which took issue with the organisation's conclusions. Canisters supposedly containing chlorine gas may not have been dropped by Syrian helicopters, it suggested, and could have been placed at the site of the attack by unknown hands.
Peter Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday reported in detail on the Henderson document. No other mainstream media followed up this story . The BBC, for example, had reported in full on the OPCW's final report on the use of chlorine gas, but never mentioned the subsequent Henderson story.
And here I might myself have abandoned the trail had I not received a call on my Beirut phone shortly after the Henderson paper, from the Nato officer who had tipped me off about the OPCW's apparent censorship of its own documents. "I wasn't talking about the Henderson report," he said abruptly. And immediately terminated our conversation. But now I understand what he must have been talking about.
For in the past few weeks, there has emerged deeply disturbing new evidence that the OPCW went far further than merely excluding one dissenting voice from its conclusions on the 2018 Douma attack.
The most recent information – published on WikiLeaks, in a report from Hitchens again and from Jonathan Steele, a former senior foreign correspondent for The Guardian – suggests that the OPCW suppressed or failed to publish, or simply preferred to ignore, the conclusions of up to 20 other members of its staff who became so upset at what they regarded as the misleading conclusions of the final report that they officially sought to have it changed in order to represent the truth . (The OPCW has said in a number of statements that it stands by its final report.)
At first, senior OPCW officials contented themselves by merely acknowledging the Henderson report's existence a few days after it appeared without making any comment on its contents. When the far more damaging later reports emerged in early November, Fernando Arias, the OPCW's director general, said that it was in "the nature of any thorough enquiry for individuals in a team to express subjective views. While some of the views continue to circulate in some public discussion forums, I would like to reiterate that I stand by the independent, professional conclusion [of the investigation]." The OPCW declined to respond to questions from Hitchens or Steele.
But the new details suggest that other evidence could have been left unpublished by the OPCW. These were not just from leaked emails, but given by an OPCW inspector – a colleague of Henderson – who was one of a team of eight to visit Douma and who appeared at a briefing in Brussels last month to explain his original findings to a group of disarmament, legal, medical and intelligence personnel.
As Steele reported afterwards, in a piece published by Counterpunch in mid-November 2019, the inspector – who gave his name to his audience, but asked to be called "Alex" – said he did not want to undermine the OPCW but stated that "most of the Douma team" felt the two reports on the incident (the OPCW had also published an interim report in 2018) were "scientifically impoverished, procedurally irregular and possibly fraudulent". Alex said he sought, in vain, to have a subsequent OPCW conference to address these concerns and "demonstrate transparency, impartiality and independence".
For example, Alex cited the OPCW report's claim that "various chlorinated organic chemicals (COCs) were found" in Douma, but said that there were "huge internal arguments" in the OPCW even before its 2018 interim report was published . Findings comparing chlorine gas normally present in the atmosphere with evidence from the Douma site were, according to Alex, kept by the head of the Douma mission and not passed to the inspector who was drafting the interim report. Alex said that he subsequently discovered that the COCs in Douma were "no higher than you would expect in any household environment", a point which he says was omitted from both OPCW reports. Alex told his Brussels audience that these omissions were "deliberate and irregular".
Alex also said that a British diplomat who was OPCW's chef de cabinet invited several members of the drafting team to his office, where they found three US officials who told them that the Syrian regime had conducted a gas attack and that two cylinders found in one building contained 170 kilograms of chlorine. The inspectors, Alex remarked, regarded this as unacceptable pressure and a violation of the OPCW's principles of "independence and impartiality".
Regarding the comments from Alex, the OPCW has pointed to the statement by Arias that the organisation stands by its final report.
Further emails continue to emerge from these discussions. This weekend, for example, WikiLeaks sent to The Independent an apparent account of a meeting held by OPCW toxicologists and pharmacists "all specialists in CW (Chemical Warfare)", according to the document. The meeting is dated 6 June 2018 and says that "the experts were conclusive in their statements that there is no correlation between symptoms [of the victims] and chlorine exposure."
In particular, they stated that "the onset of excessive frothing, as a result of pulmonary edema observed in photos and reported by witnesses would not occur in the short time period between the reported occurrence of the alleged incident and the time the videos were recorded". When I asked for a response to this document, a spokesman for the OPCW headquarters in Holland said that my request would be "considered". That was on Monday 23 December.
Any international organisation, of course, has a right to select the most quotable parts of its documentation on any investigation, or to set aside an individual's dissenting report – although, in ordinary legal enquiries, dissenting voices are quite often acknowledged. Chemical warfare is not an exact science – chlorine gas does not carry a maker's name or computer number in the same way that fragments of tank shells or bombs often do.
But the degree of unease within the OPCW's staff surely cannot be concealed much longer. To the delight of the Russians and the despair of its supporters, an organisation whose prestige alone should frighten any potential war criminals is scarcely bothering to confront its own detractors. Military commanders may conceal their tactics from an enemy in time of war, but this provides no excuse for an important international organisation dedicated to the prohibition of chemical weapons to allow its antagonists to claim that it has "cooked the books" by permitting political pressure to take precedence over the facts. And that is what is happening today.
The deep concerns among some of the OPCW staff and the deletion of their evidence does not mean that gas has not been used in Syria by the government or even by the Russians or by Isis and its fellow Islamists. All stand guilty of war crimes in the Syrian conflict. The OPCW's response to the evidence should not let war criminals off the hook. But it certainly helps them.
And what could be portrayed as acts of deceit by a supposedly authoritative body of international scientists can lead some to only one conclusion: that they must resort to those whom the west regards as "traitors" to security – WikiLeaks and others – if they wish to find out the story behind official reports . So far, the Russians and the Syrian regime have been the winners in the propaganda war. Such organisations as the OPCW need to work to make sure the truth can be revealed to everyone. Tags Politics
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
DontBelieveEitherPr. , Dec 31 2019 22:10 utc | 49
Congratulations from me too!
Especially your work on OPCW! Even a MSM "alpha journalist" like Hitchens was forced to give props to you reporting those otherwise not reported information about the hospital "victims" being there even before the alleged attack!Sadly i dont see the US pulling out of Iraq. The US is wanted there by a huge part of the Iraqis (As counterweight to Iran), not only by Sunni, but also by many Shias.
Even a totally pro-Shia reporter like Elijah reports that. So with that large Anti-Iran sentiment the US will not be forced to leave until Iraqis from ALL confessions, tribes, political factions and other groups agree to force the US out.(I dont claim the Anti-Iran sentiment in Iraq is as valid as those people think, and it certainly is fueled by Gulf state and US propaganda, but it is a fact this sentiment is prevalent).As Elijah writes, Iraqis are "emotional", in this context meaning easily manipulated by (anti-Iran) propaganda/fake news, and just like the protests/riots without coherent political plan, and realistic objectives.
Also Iran was pretty crude and Qassem Soleimani not as subtle as needed when they tried to use their soft power in the political struggle, opposed to the gulf states and the US. At least this is the prevailing view of the Iraqis, which makes it real for them, no matter how valid it is or not is.Many Iraqis felt offended by this, and they now have a very strong patriotism, which fueled the riots and attacks on Iranian linked targets. They felt their honor was attacked, and they acted as their culture and society demands when someone offends you: They hit back, violently.
That the US has this time not used their power as much as before to influence Iraq in the elections, likely made Iran's use of soft power more visible, and therefore led many Iraqis to see the US and gulf states as the smaller evil.
This unreflected, emotional and often violent patriotism now seems to be universally for most Iraqis. Even the Shia religious leaders agitate for a sovereign Iraqis, without any interference from Iran or US. So the US clearly won the battle here for the moment in a hybrid war/soft power view concerning the public image of Iran in Iraq.
Only thing that could turn this around fast would be a public outcry against the US.If the current air strikes are enough? i dont think so. The US can claim they only attacked Iran linked soldiers, even though they are now part of the Iraqi army command strucure, and many Iraqis have no problem with that.
And as Iraqis are sick of war, understandable, they also dont want those Iranian linked forces to use Iraq as a battleground against the US. And the multiple attacks in the last weeks against US installations to which the US did not react militarily, are seen by many Iraqis as just that; Iran misusing Iraq as a proxy battleground to fight the US. They think the US had to react sometime.Then there is Al Sadr, who is rumored to be the main man who instigated the riots against Iranian targets with his forces. But he may change sides and now turn (again) against the US, who knows.
All in all, the US now seems less interested to influence politics in Iraq directly like the US always did before. Trump seems to really want to get out of the MENA and focus on China etc.
But Iran would have to act more cleverly with a soft power approach to turn the Iraqis currently bad image of Iran into something more positive and leverage that situation where the US is less focused on the Middle East.Then, and only then, if the Iraqis would not see Iran as a threat to sovereignty anymore, would they force the US out of Iraq.
But all that may not matter anyway, as Iraq is on a downward spiral, and the whole political system reeks of Weimar.Democracy is seen by the majority now as the rule of the corrupt. The protesters rallied for the Shia general (connected to the US) who (in their mind) saved them from Isis to take over and clean the corrupt politicians out. Just like Saddam was a hope for most Iraqis back in the day.
An "enlightened despot".And while it may send shivers down many of our western political minds who believe that our ideology is universal to humanity(Social Democracy, Neo Liberal Democracy, Socialism, ..):
Maybe it is the only realistic option; The best realistic result based on realpolitik.The Middle East is not Western Europe. Democracy does work not in tribalism, islamic tradition and law, sectarianism, without any real civil society whatsoever.
The only options are living like the last 1500 years politically; Anarchic and tribalistic. Or with a central state hold together by a ruthless despot that gouverns respecting popular demands.
Western Democracy in Iraq is an imperialistic project doomed to fail. As sad as this may be for many of us westerners.
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Russia has received a lot of criticism over the bombing of alleged 'hospitals' in Syria which were registered on a UN sponsored list. The Russian military argued that the positions on the UN list were not of real hospitals but of ammunition depots or command centers of the Jihadists. After it had published dozens of articles bashing Russia's campaign the New York Times has finally admitted that Russia was right:
The U.N. Tried to Save Hospitals in Syria. It Didn't Work.
United Nations officials only recently created a unit to verify locations provided by relief groups that managed the exempt sites, some of which had been submitted incorrectly, The Times found. Such instances of misinformation give credibility to Russian criticisms that the system cannot be trusted and is vulnerable to misuse.
...
The groups give locations of their own choosing to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the agency that runs the system.A document prepared by the agency warned that participation in the system "does not guarantee" the safety of the sites or their personnel. The document also stated that the United Nations would not verify information provided by participating groups.
...
While investigating an airstrike in November, The Times discovered that a relief group had provided coordinates for its health center that were around 240 meters away. When another hospital was bombed in May, The Times found that the coordinates submitted by its supporting organization pointed to an unrelated structure around 765 meters north.After questions from The Times prompted the organization to review its deconfliction list, a staff member discovered that it had provided the United Nations with incorrect locations for 14 of its 19 deconflicted sites . The original locations had been logged by a pharmacist. The list had been with the United Nations humanitarian agency for eight months, and no one had contacted the organization to correct the locations, a member of the organization's staff said.
Use as open thread ...
Posted by b at 15:42 UTC | Comments (65)
alaff , Dec 29 2019 16:07 utc | 1
Interesting news. ANNA NEWS, in a recent report, announced an investigation into the infamous "White Helmets". The material promises to be very interesting, with an abundance of exclusive video, details, interviews etc. The film should be released tomorrow (December 30 at 19h Moscow time).Brendan , Dec 29 2019 18:50 utc | 12Here is the announcement (at 9'55).
Btw, I do not exclude the possibility that when this movie is released, the ANNA NEWS youtube channel account will suddenly be blocked again without explanation. Will see.
Breaking news from the NYT: 19 of the 20 reports so far of the destruction of the last hospital in Idlib were untrue. The incorrect locations were submitted by the White Helmets (just an honest mistake).Jackrabbit , Dec 29 2019 20:51 utc | 17
Caitlin Johnstone: Narrative Managers Claim White Helmets Founder Was Driven To Suicide By Syria Skepticssnake , Dec 29 2019 21:03 utc | 19I linked to ZeroHedge's reposting because of the comments which reflect skepticism about the apparent death of Jeffery Epstein as well as James Le Mesurier:
Zappalives
This guy is probably having a cocktail with epstein and his new girl whores.Kreator
Coroner concluded that this suicide was one of the most unusual ones that he ever saw. Founder of White Helmets was found stabbed, hanged and shot.Colonel Klinks Ghost
This has CIA/Mossad written ALL over it. And Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. Got it!Cluster_Frak
White Helmet is a CIA fraud, and the founder retired with full pension and benefits. Suicide was just a cover for a job well done exit.
Baghdadi's killing was also rather strange.One either believes the Empire kills those in its service when they have become inconvenient liabilities or these guys (Le Mesurier, Epstein, Baghdadi) were extracted and are living comfortably in retirement.
!!
Thanks B, at my pay grade I am not able to say that White means terror and helmet means ism.Brendan , Dec 29 2019 21:59 utc | 25Source in Syria: militants transport chlorine in coordination with White Helmets
the food that feeds and powers the nation state system
http://whatdoesitmean.com/ <= has this site been removed it has been unreachable for days now.. ?/
I didn't see it in the NYT article, but the false reporting of the hospital locations by "multiple NGOs" was supposedly just done "accidently". That's according to an NYT investigator who used to work for Bellingcat.
https://twitter.com/trbrtc/status/1211384089472843778My previous comment about the last hospital in Idlib was a joke, but the NYT's Mr. Triebert seems to be serious about the accidental fake news about hospital locations. RIP satire.
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
snake , Dec 29 2019 5:30 utc | 60
psychohistorian , Dec 29 2019 5:53 utc | 61
Below is a link to a Catlin Johnstone link about the latest Wikileaks dump about OPCW and who Voldemort isMedia's Deafening Silence On Latest WikiLeaks Drops Is Its Own Scandal
The take away quote
"
Up until the OPCW leaks, WikiLeaks drops always made mainstream news headlines. Everyone remembers how the 2016 news cycle was largely dominated by leaked Democratic Party emails emerging from the outlet. Even the relatively minor ICE agents publication by WikiLeaks last year, containing information that was already public, garnered headlines from top US outlets like The Washington Post , Newsweek, and USA Today. Now, on this exponentially more important story, zero coverage.The mass media's stone-dead silence on the OPCW scandal is becoming its own scandal, of equal or perhaps even greater significance than the OPCW scandal itself. It opens up a whole litany of questions which have tremendous importance for every citizen of the western world; questions like, how are people supposed to participate in democracy if all the outlets they normally turn to to make informed voting decisions adamantly refuse to tell them about the existence of massive news stories like the OPCW scandal? How are people meant to address such conspiracies of silence when there is no mechanism in place to hold the entire mass media to account for its complicity in it? And by what mechanism are all these outlets unifying in that conspiracy of silence?
"
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Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Kali , Dec 29 2019 2:52 utc | 49Mike Figueroa from The Humanist Report has got a bunch of angry leftists hating on Tulsi Gabbard for her Christmas greeting today on twitter and youtube, they are claiming Tulsi is "too religious" or "she is pandering to evangelicals." They have gone insane obviously and are hating on Tulsi for other reasons (she dares challenge Bernie for president). Pam Ho breaks it all down for you at Like, In The Year 2024
TJ , Dec 28 2019 18:10 utc | 10
OPCW-DOUMA - Release Part 4augrr , Dec 29 2019 0:10 utc | 39We now have Voldemorts real name, Sebastien Braha.
Re #10psychohistorian , Dec 29 2019 5:53 utc | 61Voldemort is on LinkedIn. I wanted to congratulate him on his ethics (NOT) but did not have the status with LinkedIn required to email someone.
Perhaps someone else in the bar could send him a message - needs to be a premium member.
Below is a link to a Catlin Johnstone link about the latest Wikileaks dump about OPCW and who Voldemort isak74 , Dec 29 2019 5:53 utc | 62Media's Deafening Silence On Latest WikiLeaks Drops Is Its Own Scandal
The take away quote
"
Up until the OPCW leaks, WikiLeaks drops always made mainstream news headlines. Everyone remembers how the 2016 news cycle was largely dominated by leaked Democratic Party emails emerging from the outlet. Even the relatively minor ICE agents publication by WikiLeaks last year, containing information that was already public, garnered headlines from top US outlets like The Washington Post , Newsweek, and USA Today. Now, on this exponentially more important story, zero coverage.The mass media's stone-dead silence on the OPCW scandal is becoming its own scandal, of equal or perhaps even greater significance than the OPCW scandal itself. It opens up a whole litany of questions which have tremendous importance for every citizen of the western world; questions like, how are people supposed to participate in democracy if all the outlets they normally turn to to make informed voting decisions adamantly refuse to tell them about the existence of massive news stories like the OPCW scandal? How are people meant to address such conspiracies of silence when there is no mechanism in place to hold the entire mass media to account for its complicity in it? And by what mechanism are all these outlets unifying in that conspiracy of silence?
""Why do so many people in the West have this knee-jerk need to try to build false equivalencies between their criminal empire and other systems, or voice cynical and unfounded assumptions of malfeasance by those other systems whenever those other systems demonstrate superiority? It is an egotistical tribal sickness."uncle tungsten , Dec 29 2019 9:32 utc | 68It is a symptom of the "West is Best" syndrome.
Or in its specific American incarnation, the ideology that America is the Shining City on Hill, Exceptional Country, and Indispensable Nation.
People indoctrinated into this belief system cannot brook the idea that there may be an alternative to their own way of life that is, in some respects, better. Hence, they will instinctively attack and smear this alternative as bad.
In many ways, Western Liberal "Democracy" (or what passes for democracy) is a secular religion and fundamentalist ideology.
As Francis Fuckuyama stated at the end of the Cold War with his pronouncement of the End of History, Western Liberal Democracy is the highest form of human socio-political evolution and government.
There Is No Alternative.
psychohistorian #61Thanks for pointing that out, Caitlin Johnston may be revealing the extent to which Integrity Initiative or maybe Institute for Statecraft have now bought even more editors than previously revealed in those leaked papers. OUTRAGE is the mildest term that comes to mind. What spineless media bedevils this world.
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Dec 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
librul , Dec 29 2019 22:21 utc | 28
@Posted by: sleepy | Dec 29 2019 17:38 utc | 8Thanks sleeply,
But underlying your comment is an assumption of *logic* in this world. If it ever existed it certainly does not apply any longer. Look how much mileage the MSM and the anti-Democracy Party got out of the nothingburger Russiagate.
The MSM doesn't even need to smell real blood, they will run with anything to continue the coup.
Anything negative that involves Edward Gallagher between now and election day could be magnified 1 million-fold and
repeated 1000 million times by the MSM and dropped in Trump's lap.If the CIA/MI6/FBI did attempt to create a sting it need not be as dramatic as the Skripal fakery. What would you dream up if you were tasked by the CIA to propose something? KISS.
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Dec 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Senior OPCW Official Busted: Leaked Email Exposes Orders To "Delete All Traces" Of Dissent On Douma by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/28/2019 - 10:30 0 SHARES
Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation, revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the fact-finding mission.
RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk
-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:
" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"
According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than dropped.
"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.
It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018 over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.
AP file image.Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the minutes).
Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQNThe purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims."
More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."
According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure ."
The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".
* * *
See full details at Wikileaks.org
JohnFrodo , 28 minutes ago link
africoman , 38 minutes ago linkpity the human pawns at the center of this mess.
ponyboy99 , 40 minutes ago linkThere has been a Newsweek reporter who quite over editorial block of this OPCW case here also another interview by Grayzone
The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed except being a misdirected na
ponyboy99 , 47 minutes ago linkIf you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar drinking Blatz.
Ace006 , 57 minutes ago linkIf you go thru life assuming every single thing is a farce and a lie (Roddy Piper) these events can not only be explained, they can be predicted.
Weihan , 58 minutes ago linkSOMEbody's got to ensure the intergrity of the Documents Registry Archive
Nothing , 1 hour ago linkThe globalist deep-state's reach is legendary.
Greed is King , 36 minutes ago linkyes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?
africoman , 16 minutes ago linkThat`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.
And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.
Thordoom , 1 hour ago linkIt's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks
I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on false flag
I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as retribution etc
DCFusor , 1 hour ago linkThis organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.
British elite is the worst of all.
St. TwinkleToes , 1 hour ago linkYour military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).
They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite some time.
I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the clown in chief's tie is.
veritas semper vinces , 2 hours ago linkImagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.
This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.
holgerdanske , 1 hour ago linkSenior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.
lwilland1012 , 3 hours ago linkIt was May that insisted on this attack. Remember the "poison" attack and the evil Russians?
ken , 1 hour ago linkPray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is being set, we might as well not have any.
WorkingClassMan , 3 hours ago linkWell, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going forward....?
turkey george palmer , 3 hours ago linkEverybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on behalf of Isn'treal.
The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.
adonisdemilo , 3 hours ago linkOnly official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain
johnnycanuck , 3 hours ago linkThird rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us.
5fingerdiscount , 3 hours ago linkIt is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW. In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".
Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.
And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep secret from the world.
If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press.
Helg Saracen , 3 hours ago linkInstead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup?
carbonmutant , 4 hours ago linkThe destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.
And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.
dogbert8 , 4 hours ago linkYou gotta wonder how much the deep state has deleted about their interference in Trump's administration...
Joiningupthedots , 4 hours ago linkPretty much everyone with a brain realizes this all was a lie; only the M5M and the DC swamp continue to pretend it wasn't.
ClickNLook , 3 hours ago linkWho really made the order though?
Condor_0000 , 4 hours ago linkSebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW needs to be interrogated to find out.
Newsweek Reporter Quits After Editors Block Coverage of OPCW Syria Scandal
Aaron Mate
According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this."
New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded.
This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure, suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.
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Dec 27, 2018 | www.rt.com
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia and Iran.
'We're no longer suckers of the world!' Trump says US is respected as nation AGAIN (VIDEO)
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to" the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous." He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
'We give them $4.5bn a year': Israel will still be 'good' after US withdrawal from Syria – Trump
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight" in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has berated the Saudis and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly $4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
'With almost $22 trillion of debt, the US is in no position to attack Iran'
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he said : "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas night was reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world, the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for "pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything, and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've always been getting.'
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Apr 09, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct wars. They use today other, various methods like brutal proxy wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources. The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that the Western hypocrites were using him according to their interests .Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy. The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the Treuhand Operation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in Ireland , Italy and Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed in an open financial coup against Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the second eurozone economy, France, rushed to impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the NSA interceptions scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a transatlantic economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
Economic Wars, Constitutional Coups, Provocative Operations – Argentina/Brazil/Venezuela
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally, the constitutional coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the usual actions of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth, with a big overdose of exaggeration. The establishment parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's happening right now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership, through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A video , for example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress. This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination (like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
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Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
KC February 15, 2019 at 11:16 pm
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives, create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class in US politics and culture.Occasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George OrwellAlso we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
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Dec 19, 2019 | angrybearblog.com
likbez, December 19, 2019 6:58 pm
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept. of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984. Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels."
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Apr 09, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
The dominant propaganda meme of the day, as already noted by Colonel Lang, is that Bashar al Assad unleashed chemical weapons on "innocent women and children" in rebel held territory and that Russia and Iran, along with Syria, are responsible. We MUST take action (or so we are told emphatically by morons pretending to be news anchors on the various cable outlets). Few media outlets are willing to report that this information is not only uncorroborated but originates with established liars and rebel partisans--i .e., the White Helmets. Oh, and did you know that the White Helmets are funded largely by the Governments of the UK and the United States?
It is critical to keep the source of funds in mind if you are to understand the true nature of these Islamic scam artists. Ironically, Max Blumenthal, son of the infamous Sid, has been a leader in exposing these fraudsters. Blumenthal wrote, more than three years ago, that :
The White Helmets' leadership is driven by a pro-interventionist agenda conceived by the Western governments and public relations groups that back them. Anyone who visits the group's website -- which is operated by an opposition-funded PR company known as the Syria Campaign -- will be immediately directed to a request to sign a petition for a no-fly zone to "stop the bombs" in Syria. These sorts of communiques highlight the dual role the White Helmets play as a civil defense organization saving lives while lobbying for a US military campaign that will almost inevitably result in the collapse of Syria's government. . . .
The White Helmets were founded in collaboration with USAID's Office of Transitional Initiatives -- the wing that has promoted regime change around the world -- and have been provided with $23 million in funding from the department. USAID supplies the White Helmets through Chemonics, a for-profit contractor based in Washington DC that has become notorious for wasteful aid imbroglios from Haiti to Afghanistan.
While members of the White Helmets have been implicated in atrocities carried out by jihadist rebel groups, the names of many of the firms that supposedly monitor and evaluate their work have been kept secret by USAID on unspecified security grounds.
Anna , 12 hours ago
Nikki Haley: "Russia will "never be America's friend." Moscow can try to behave "like a regular country," but the US will "slap them when we need to," Haley said." ... "Everybody likes to listen to the words. I'm going to tell you – look at the actions," Haley urged. "We expelled 60 Russian diplomats/spies, we have armed Ukraine so that they can defend themselves..." https://www.rt.com/usa/423422-us-russia-stalemate-haley/Babak Makkinejad Anna , 6 hours agoThe UK has the pottery-boy Gavin Williamson as a Sec. of Defence and the US has a waste-management Nikki Haley as an US envoy to the United Nations. They both are ignoramuses and the eager ziocon tools.
Again, Israel's special relationships with anti-Assad forces and Israel's refusal to ratify the Chemical Arms Treaty make Israel the major suspect in the chemical attacks in Syria: https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-russia-links-syria-chemwar-to-israel-1.5333503
That "Russia will "never be America's friend" is not disputed. What is missing is that "US and Russia cannot afford to be enemies". Nixon understood all of that 30 years ago.Anna , a day agoYes. Has not Israel given orders? - https://www.fort-russ.com/2018/04/urgent-syria-under-attack/Sid Finster , 2 hours agoSociopaths care nothing for logic or morality of they stabs in the way of something they want. Like the Reichstag fire.Kooshy , 9 hours agoI don't understand why people refuse to see that we are run by sociopaths, or, at a minimum, by people indistinguishable from sociopaths.
I think Colonel is absolutely right, all signs are, that everybody on both sides are getting ready for a war, how big, and who will participate, nobody knows yet would it be 2 oceans and 3 continents war or just concentrated on Eurasia? Unfortunately, I think DJT' canoe has sunken in the swamp he said he will drain, or IMO he didn't even know what he is talking about, or is dealing with.TTG , 9 hours agoI agree that the uncritical and unwavering acceptance of the notion of Assad's chemical attacks on his people is ignorant and dangerous. It shows a true lack of imagination among the jihadis and their supporters. Not one of these attacks have been convincingly attributed to Assad's forces. To the contrary, the propaganda put out by the jihadis appears blatantly staged and bogus. The sooner we're out of Syria, the better. And the sooner Trump realizes unwavering support of the current Israeli regime is a cost center, the better.Terry , 11 hours agoThank you for reopening comments. I missed my tribe of non-conformists thinkers and all the various viewpoints. :-)SmoothieX12 , 11 hours agoThe insanity and distortion of reality and facts is getting extreme. Unfortunately tribalism with it's baggage of historical grievances, partisan loyalties, and mob mentalities are growing as our society returns to default human social behaviour while loyalty to the binding myths and ideas of the constitution and the founding of our republic fade. Truth is a casualty. Facts don't matter. Conformity to whatever tribal identity selected is the norm. Science show that there is a real decline in the higher brain functions when mobs form.
A good article on our decline into tribalism -
https://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/can-democracy-survive-tribalism.html
robt willmann , 12 hours agoIf the Russians don't respond in some discrete but substantive way, their presence, efforts and international prestige will have vanished by tomorrow morning.Your "grasp" of air-defense issues, including suggestion of shooting down aircraft in Lebanon's (international) airspace, among many other things clearly shows an armchair "strategist" (no offense, I am one myself) who played, unlike me--I don't play video games, too much video-games and thinks that he knows better than say Russian General Staff. Indeed, what do they know, really--what a bunch of amateurs who do not follow your highly professional suggestion.
The Russian Defense Ministry is now saying that 8 missiles were fired at the Syrian T4 airfield and airbase from Israeli airplanes flying inside Lebanon. The report says that 5 of the missiles were knocked down by antiaircraft / missile defense systems and that 3 of them hit the area of the airfield--Anna , 12 hours agoAgree.james , 18 hours ago
The theater of absurd: Israelis "are shooting with live ammunition at people without guns:" Play Hideisrael to the rescue... they have to protect isis! and where would they be without regular support from the usa / uk.... white helmets are a pale imitation of israel at this point..Hood Canal Gardner , 20 hours agoPT .. thanks for the "outing" of Chemonics .. add Pakistan/HCG got a brick through his Islamabad bedroom window in the early1990s..tucked tail.Karl Kolchak , 20 hours ago"Chemonics, a for-profit contractor based in Washington DC that has become notorious for wasteful aid imbroglios from Haiti to Afghanistan."
Kathy , 20 hours ago"...a large number of supposedly intelligent Republicans and Democrats..."There's no such thing any more. Both parties chased their intelligent leaders out a long time ago. Indeed, this is a repeat of the Cuban Missile Crisis with a bunch of emotional ten-year-olds in charge.
Slightly OT, but in poking around the SCL/Cambridge Analytica web of intrigue, I found this tantalizing Wikipedia account of Vincent Tchenguiz, the largest shareholder in CA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Tchenguizblue peacock , 20 hours agoSome people are truly not fit to walk on this earth.
PTwisedupearly Ceo , 21 hours agoThis is getting more and more ridiculous. From the ludicrous novichok caper that May and Boris have made into a Monty Python skit to the yet another theatrical chemical attack performance starring the perennial Syrian villain, Animal Assad and the increasingly heated rhetoric emanating from DC, London, Beijing and Moscow. Of course with all the bugles and trumpets blowing from the hysterical media with the Borg agenda trying to cajole a highly skeptical public.
What do you make of all this? Is the Borg getting really desperate that their gig may be up? That their deceit and duplicity will be uncovered.
We have Brennan, Holder, Yates busy tweeting along with Trump. There is McCabe and his GoFundMe. We have Comey's book tour and even Loretta Lynch is to hit the airwaves. All to spin tales that less people believe unless of course you are a card carrying partisan. Then there is Sessions making announcements of US Attorneys investigating and possibly convening grand juries and supervising document production to Congress around the conspiracy at the highest levels of law enforcement & intelligence in the Obama administration. Is this Reality TV at it's best putting Jerry Springer to shame??
What does your spidy sense tell you?
I trust the Pentagon warned Israel not to launch cruise missiles from their submarines close to US surface fleet units.Anna , 21 hours ago"If the Russians don't respond... their international prestige will have vanished..."Peter in Toronto , a day ago
-- What are you implying -- that only deception, perfidy, and bullying deserve "prestige?" Would not it be great if the decent people have finally explained the "prestigious" Nikki Haley that she is an ignoramus and warmonger? And how about sending Gavin Williamson to his familiar proper place where he could resume selling the fine pottery and ceramic countertops instead of being a mockery to his current post of Sec of Defence?What is so prestigious about the opportunistic Theresa May and Boris Johnson, whose incompetent actions have been highly damaging to the UK reputation? And guess that the criminal (but very pious) Tony Blair fits the definition of "prestige."
There are people whose response is indeed important from the perspective of decency and competence and patriotism – these people are the US brass in the highest echelons of the US military. Do they serve the interests of the US or the interests of Israel? The question is very simple. The answer is yes or no.
Saker asks for patience: http://thesaker.is/missile-strikes-on-syria-tonight-do-not-rush-to-conclusions-please-post-here-what-you-hear/
Comment section: "The Lord Has Risen, and the forces of evil are rabid for more Death and Destruction."Salvos underway.The Beaver , a day agoIf the Russians don't respond in some discrete but substantive way, their presence, efforts and international prestige will have vanished by tomorrow morning.
T4 -East Homs being hit . Looks like the ISRAELIS are sending missilesAnna , a day ago"His master's voice (or how an obedient dog goes to war)": http://thesaker.is/his-masters-voice-or-how-an-obedient-dog-goes-to-war/Not In Istanbul , a day ago
"Israeli officials: the "U.S. must strike in Syria" because "Assad is the angel of death, and the world would be better without him."
Ziomedia is willing to report the Skripal nonsense with a straight face After all, if the Russians could use "Novichok and buckwheat" in the UK, why would they not use chemical weapons in Syria? And, no, the fact that neither the Russians nor the Syrians actually have any chemical weapons (both were fully disarmed and certified as such) makes absolutely no difference! "
And what country does not want to declare her chemical weapon? – http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/175032
"The head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) on Tuesday called on Israel to renounce chemical weapons and join the convention banning them just like Syria did."Cruise missile strikes are currently underway...Anna , a day ago"...Owen Matthews' article at The Spectator betrays the kind of factual sloppiness that is typical of the pundit-political-business classes in the West today."jjc , a day ago
-- In this case it is more than sloppiness: Owen Matthews is an opportunist loaded with the tribal grievances against Russia:
http://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/11/02/re-visiting-russian-counter-propaganda-methods/
"... in his book "Stalin's Children" Matthews clearly takes sides with, endorses and, possibly, even covers up for his Trotskyist Commissar grandfather and that makes him a fair target for criticism"The constant repetitive referral to "Obama's red line" has been effective in shaping a preferred response to these alleged attacks. Contrary to today's conventional wisdom, Obama did not "fail" to enforce his own line - the administration through its own State Department was quite prepared to rain bombs down on Damascus, but faced political opposition from Congress (as did Cameron's UK government fail to achieve support for the bombing in its Parliament). Congressional opposition was sparked by robust opposition from citizens/ constituents in the form of communications directed to their Congressional offices. This was all reported by the mainstream media at the time, yet a false recounting is predominant today. The "unrelenting information operation" is not possible without the witting collaboration of the supposed "free" media. The ownership and editorial staff of such are as fully responsible for this frightening state of affairs as anyone else.blowback , a day agoThe SOHR has some pretty solid reporting on what is going on in Douma. They make no mention of any use of chemical weapons in Douma, but instead attribute the deaths to suffocation resulting from the destruction of cellars containing civilians:Imagine , a day ago
And with the death of more citizens, it has increased to 96 at least including 27 children and 16 woman, the number of persons who have been killed since Friday, and the death toll is expected to rise because there are some people in critical situation, where reliable sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory that some of the casualties and wounded suffocated as a result of the demolition of home basements due to the heavy and intense shelling on Douma city, and the trusted sources confirmed to the Syrian Observatory of Rights that the number of injuries today has exceeds 500, including tens of children and tens of women, where more than 70 of them have suffered suffocation as a result of the demolition of home basements over them due to the heavy and intense shelling on the last area beyond the regime forces' control in the Eastern Ghouta , which is the stronghold of Jaysh al-Islam, and the Syrian Observatory published hours ago that 11 people at least including 5 children had suffocated, after bombardment by a warplane on an area near the old cemetery at the northern outskirts of Douma city in the Eastern Ghouta, also the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights published that violent clashes taking place between the regime forces and their allied militiamen of Syrian and non-Syrian nationalities against Jaish Al-Islam in areas in the vicinity of Douma area, where the regime forces continue their attempts to achieve more advancement in the area after they managed today morning to advance in the farms of Douma from the direction of Al-Raihan area. The regime forces managed to advance in 50 farms in the area following series of ongoing ground and aerial shelling of the regime forces and their warplanes and helicopters, which target the city and its vicinity.
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?p=88817
Recent articles from SOHR can be found here:
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?cat=26&paged=2
and here:
http://www.syriahr.com/en/?cat=26Jaish al-Islam asked for quarter as the SAA appears to have broken Jaish al-Islam's defensive lines making their position in Douma untenable.
"Murder in the Sun Morgue" by Dr. Denis O'Brien (neuropharmacology expert):Swamp Yankee , a day ago"The primary conclusion of this study, based on a pharmacological analysis of the video and photographic evidence, is that the Ghouta Massacre near Damascus on Aug 21.2013 was not a sarin rocket attack carried out by Assad or his supporters. It was a false-flag stunt carried out by the insurgents using carbon monoxide or cyanide to murder children and use their corpses as bait to lure the Americans into attacking Assad."
288 pp. analysis. Also, some had slit throats:
https://www.scribd.com/document/230748990/Murder-in-the-SunMorgueThank you for this, Publius Tacitus -- and to you, Colonel Lang, re-opening the comments section here at SST.Patrick Armstrong , 10 hours agoI think it's notable that Owen Matthews' article at The Spectator betrays the kind of factual sloppiness that is typical of the pundit-political-business classes in the West today. For of course, "Arsenal of Democracy" is a phrase associated not with Truman but with Franklin Roosevelt.
I was the working-class scholarship kid at one of the elite educational institutions that forms a feeder-conduit to these echelons of media, political, and economic power, and one thing I have remarked is the utter mediocrity and laziness of so many members of our ruling class. As Corey Robin found out when he had an exchange with Chelsea Clinton over Hannah Arendt, and I discovered as an undergrad and in grad school, many of them simply never did the reading. They relied then, and still do today, on group-think and sheep-like intellectual conformity, which, of course, is then magnificently (and munificently!) rewarded. I also discovered that even when they did read something, it made no impression on them, not in any real way, they failed to keep the lessons taught thereby in their head once it was no longer needed for an exam or a paper.
To be led by fools such as these into a world war -- and why? -- is lunacy. That's why I'm grateful for places like this Committee to keep the home-fires of sanity burning. Thanks again, and let's hope that peace prevails, against the devoutly-hoped wishes of the Borg.
An excellent summary, I posted it on FB and VK.
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Nov 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Nauman Sadiq,
Before the evacuation of 1,000 American troops from northern Syria to western Iraq, the Pentagon had 2,000 US forces in Syria. After the drawdown of US troops at Erdogan's insistence in order for Ankara to mount a ground offensive in northern Syria, the US has still deployed 1,000 troops, mainly in oil-rich eastern Deir al-Zor province and at al-Tanf military base.
Al-Tanf military base is strategically located in southeastern Syria on the border between Syria, Iraq and Jordan, and it straddles on a critically important Damascus-Baghdad highway, which serves as a lifeline for Damascus. Washington has illegally occupied 55-kilometer area around al-Tanf since 2016, and several hundred US Marines have trained several Syrian militant groups there.
It's worth noting that rather than fighting the Islamic State, the purpose of continued presence of the US forces at al-Tanf military base is to address Israel's concerns regarding the expansion of Iran's influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
Regarding the oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate, it's worth pointing out that Syria used to produce modest quantities of oil for domestic needs before the war – roughly 400,000 barrels per day, which isn't much compared to tens of millions barrels daily oil production in the Gulf states.
Although Donald Trump crowed in a characteristic blunt manner in a tweet after the withdrawal of 1,000 American troops from northern Syria that Washington had deployed forces in eastern Syria where there was oil, the purpose of exercising control over Syria's oil is neither to smuggle oil out of Syria nor to deny the valuable source of revenue to the Islamic State.
There is no denying the fact that the remnants of the Islamic State militants are still found in Syria and Iraq but its emirate has been completely dismantled in the region and its leadership is on the run. So much so that the fugitive caliph of the terrorist organization was killed in the bastion of a rival jihadist outfit, al-Nusra Front in Idlib, hundreds of kilometers away from the Islamic State strongholds in eastern Syria.
Much like the "scorched earth" battle strategy of medieval warlords – as in the case of the Islamic State which early in the year burned crops of local farmers while retreating from its former strongholds in eastern Syria – Washington's basic purpose in deploying the US forces in oil and natural gas fields of Deir al-Zor governorate is to deny the valuable source of income to its other main rival in the region, Damascus.
After the devastation caused by eight years of proxy war, the Syrian government is in dire need of tens of billions dollars international assistance to rebuild the country. Not only is Washington hampering efforts to provide international aid to the hapless country, it is in fact squatting over Syria's own resources with the help of its only ally in the region, the Kurds.
Although Donald Trump claimed credit for expropriating Syria's oil wealth, it bears mentioning that "scorched earth" policy is not a business strategy, it is the institutional logic of the deep state. President Trump is known to be a businessman and at least ostensibly follows a non-interventionist ideology; being a novice in the craft of international diplomacy, however, he has time and again been misled by the Pentagon and Washington's national security establishment.
Regarding Washington's interest in propping up the Gulf's autocrats and fighting their wars in regional conflicts, it bears mentioning that in April 2016, the Saudi foreign minister threatened that the Saudi kingdom would sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets if the US Congress passed a bill that would allow Americans to sue the Saudi government in the United States courts for its role in the September 11, 2001 terror attack – though the bill was eventually passed, Saudi authorities have not been held accountable; even though 15 out of 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
Moreover, $750 billion is only the Saudi investment in the United States, if we add its investment in Western Europe and the investments of UAE, Kuwait and Qatar in the Western economies, the sum total would amount to trillions of dollars of Gulf's investments in North America and Western Europe.
Furthermore, in order to bring home the significance of the Persian Gulf's oil in the energy-starved industrialized world, here are a few stats from the OPEC data: Saudi Arabia has the world's largest proven crude oil reserves of 265 billion barrels and its daily oil production exceeds 10 million barrels; Iran and Iraq, each, has 150 billion barrels reserves and has the capacity to produce 5 million barrels per day, each; while UAE and Kuwait, each, has 100 billion barrels reserves and produces 3 million barrels per day, each; thus, all the littoral states of the Persian Gulf, together, hold 788 billion barrels, more than half of world's 1477 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.
No wonder then, 36,000 United States troops have currently been deployed in their numerous military bases and aircraft carriers in the oil-rich Persian Gulf in accordance with the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which states: "Let our position be absolutely clear: an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force."
Additionally, regarding the Western defense production industry's sales of arms to the Gulf Arab States, a report authored by William Hartung of the US-based Center for International Policy found that the Obama administration had offered Saudi Arabia more than $115 billion in weapons, military equipment and training during its eight-year tenure.
Similarly, the top items in Trump's agenda for his maiden visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2017 were: firstly, he threw his weight behind the idea of the Saudi-led "Arab NATO" to counter Iran's influence in the region; and secondly, he announced an unprecedented arms package for Saudi Arabia. The package included between $98 billion and $128 billion in arms sales.
Therefore, keeping the economic dependence of the Western countries on the Gulf Arab States in mind, during the times of global recession when most of manufacturing has been outsourced to China, it is not surprising that when the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided to provide training and arms to the Islamic jihadists in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Obama administration was left with no other choice but to toe the destructive policy of its regional Middle Eastern allies, despite the sectarian nature of the proxy war and its attendant consequences of breeding a new generation of Islamic jihadists who would become a long-term security risk not only to the Middle East but to the Western countries, as well.
Similarly, when King Abdullah's successor King Salman decided, on the whim of the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, to invade Yemen in March 2015, once again the Obama administration had to yield to the dictates of Saudi Arabia and UAE by fully coordinating the Gulf-led military campaign in Yemen not only by providing intelligence, planning and logistical support but also by selling billions of dollars' worth of arms and ammunition to the Gulf Arab States during the conflict.
In this reciprocal relationship, the US provides security to the ruling families of the Gulf Arab states by providing weapons and troops; and in return, the Gulf's petro-sheikhs contribute substantial investments to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars to the Western economies.
Regarding the Pax Americana which is the reality of the contemporary neocolonial order, according to a January 2017 infographic by the New York Times, 210,000 US military personnel were stationed all over the world, including 79,000 in Europe, 45,000 in Japan, 28,500 in South Korea and 36,000 in the Middle East.
Although Donald Trump keeps complaining that NATO must share the cost of deployment of US troops, particularly in Europe where 47,000 American troops are stationed in Germany since the end of the Second World War, 15,000 in Italy and 8,000 in the United Kingdom, fact of the matter is that the cost is already shared between Washington and host countries.
Roughly, European countries pay one-third of the cost for maintaining US military bases in Europe whereas Washington chips in the remaining two-third. In the Far Eastern countries, 75% of the cost for the deployment of American troops is shared by Japan and the remaining 25% by Washington, and in South Korea, 40% cost is shared by the host country and the US contributes the remaining 60%.
Whereas the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar – pay two-third of the cost for maintaining 36,000 US troops in the Persian Gulf where more than half of world's proven oil reserves are located and Washington contributes the remaining one-third.
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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism.
ipsprez , 8 minutes ago link
OLD-Pipe , 19 minutes ago linkI am always amazed (and amused) at how much smarter "journalists" are than POTUS. If ONLY Mr. Trump would read more and listen to those who OBVIOUSLY are sooo much smarter!!!! Maybe then he wouldn't be cowed and bullied by Erdogan, Xi, Jung-on, Trudeau (OK so maybe that one was too far fetched) to name a few. Please note the sarcasm. Do I really need to go in to the success after success Mr. Trump's foreign policy has enjoyed? Come on Man.
Blue Steel 309 , 5 minutes ago linkWhat a load of BOLOCKS...The ONLY, I mean The Real and True Reason for American Armored presence is one thing,,,,,,,Ready for IT ? ? ? To Steal as much OIL as Possible, AND convert the Booty into Currency, Diamonds or some other intrinsically valuable commodity, Millions of Dollars at a Time......17 Years of Shadows and Ghost Trucks and Tankers Loading and Off-Loading the Black Gold...this is what its all about......M-O-N-E-Y....... Say It With Me.... Mon-nee, Money Money Mo_on_ne_e_ey, ......
ombon , 58 minutes ago linkThis is about Israel, not oil.
Pandelis , 28 minutes ago linkFrom the sale of US oil in Syria receive 30 million. dollars per month. Image losses are immeasurably greater. The United States put the United States as a robbery bandit. This is American democracy. The longer the troops are in Syria, the more countries will switch to settlements in national currencies.
uhland62 , 50 minutes ago linkyeah well these are mafia guys...
BobEore , 1 hour ago link"Our interests", "strategic interests" is always about money, just a euphemism so it doesn't look as greedy as it is. Another euphemism is "security' ,meaning war preparations.
...The military power of the USA put directly in the service of "the original TM" PIRATE STATE. U are the man Norm! But wait... now things get a little hazy... in the classic... 'alt0media fake storyline' fashion!
"President Trump is known to be a businessman and at least ostensibly follows a non-interventionist ideology; being a novice in the craft of international diplomacy, however, he has time and again been misled by the Pentagon and Washington's national security establishment."
Awww! Poor "DUmb as Rocks Donnie" done been fooled agin!
...In the USA... the military men are stirring at last... having been made all too aware that their putative 'boss' has been operating on behalf of foreign powers ever since being [s]elected, that the State Dept of the once Great Republic has been in active cahoots with the jihadis ...
and that those who were sent over there to fight against the headchoppers discovered that the only straight shooters in the whole mess turned out to be the Kurds who AGENT FRIMpf THREW UNDER THE BUS ON INSTRUCTIONS FROM JIHADI HQ!
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Oct 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,
The Courage Foundation , an international protection and advocacy group for whistleblowers, has published the findings of a panel it convened last week on the extremely suspicious behavior of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in its investigation of an alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria last year. After hearing an extensive presentation from a member of the OPCW's Douma investigation team, the panel's members (including a world-renowned former OPCW Director General) report that they are "unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018."
I'll get to the panel and its findings in a moment, but first I should provide some historical background so that readers who aren't intimately familiar with this ongoing scandal can fully appreciate the significance of this new development.
In late March of last year, President Trump publicly stated that the US military would soon be withdrawing troops from Syria, causing some with an ear to the ground like independent US congressional candidate Steve Cox to predict that there would shortly be a false flag chemical weapons attack in that nation. This was because the public had already been shown that highly suspicious chemical attacks tended to happen when the Trump administration begins pushing for a reversal of standing US Syria policy, as I noted in April 2017 immediately following the alleged attack in Khan Shaykhun.
"I was able to predict Douma in 2018 because it happened already almost exactly 1 year prior, at Khan Shaykhun, April 4, 2017," Cox told me on Twitter earlier today.
"Khan Shaykhun also occurred within days of the Trump Admin saying we're leaving Syria."
And, like clockwork, on April 7 2018 dozens of civilians in Douma were killed in an incident which was quickly reported as a Syrian government chemical attack by all the usual establishment narrative managers on Syria , with everyone from the White Helmets to Charles Lister to Eliot Higgins to Julian Röpcke loudly flagging it on social media to draw the attention of mainstream news outlets who were slower to pick up the story.
There was immediate skepticism, partly because acclaimed journalists like Sy Hersh have been highlighting plot holes in the official story about chemical weapons in Syria since 2013, partly because Assad would stand nothing to gain and everything to lose by using a banned yet highly ineffective weapon in a battle he'd already essentially won in that region, and partly because the people controlling things on the ground in Douma were the Al Qaeda-linked extremist group Jaysh-al Islam and the incredibly shady narrative management operation known as the White Helmets. Those groups, unlike the Assad government, most certainly would stand everything to gain by staging a chemical attack in the desperate hope that it would draw NATO powers into attacking the Syrian government and perhaps saving their necks.
Long before any investigation into this suspicious incident could even be begun, much less completed, the US State Department declared it to have been a chemical weapons attack perpetrated by the Syrian government, saying "the Assad regime must be held accountable", and that Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for the attack. Which was of course mighty convenient for US geostrategic interests.
On the 14th of April 2018, the US, UK and France launched an airstrike on the Syrian government as punishment for using chemical weapons, citing secret "intelligence" which the US government claimed gave them "very high confidence that Syria was responsible." The public has to this day never been permitted to see this intelligence. This all happened before any formal international investigation could take place.
The OPCW conducted their investigation, and in July 2018 published an interim report saying that "no organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties." This ruled out sarin gas, invalidating earlier reports by Syria war pundits like Charles Lister who claimed that sarin had been used, but it didn't rule out chlorine gas. In March of this year the OPCW issued its final report saying forensics were consistent with chlorine gas use and advancing a ballistics report which strongly implicated the Assad government by implying it was an aerial drop (Syrian opposition militias have no air force). The official Twitter account for the UK Delegation to the OPCW tweeted at the time that the report "confirms chemical weapons used, demonstrating the vital importance of OPCW's work. This confirmed chlorine attack was only the latest example of Asad regime's CW attacks on its own population."
In May of this year, a leaked internal document from the OPCW investigation was published by the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media which completely contradicts the findings of the official report published in March. The leaked Engineering Assessment said that "observations at the scene of the two locations, together with subsequent analysis, suggest there is a higher probability both cylinders were manually placed at those two locations rather than being delivered from aircraft," which would implicate the forces on the ground in the incident rather than the Assad government.
The OPCW indirectly confirmed the document's authenticity by telling the press that its release had been "unauthorised". Climate Audit's Stephen McIntyre published an excellent thread breaking down how the document invalidates the OPCW's claims which you can read by clicking here . Establishment narrative managers had a very difficult time spinning the fact that the OPCW had taken it upon itself to hide findings from the public which dissented from its official report on an incident which preceded an international act of war upon a sovereign nation, and all the implications that necessarily has for the legitimacy of the organization's other work.
Throughout this time, critical thinkers like myself have been aggressively smeared as deranged conspiracy theorists, war crimes deniers and genocide deniers for expressing skepticism of the establishment-authorized narrative on Douma. Which takes us to today.
The Courage Foundation panel who met with the OPCW whistleblower consists of former OPCW Director General José Bustani (whose highly successful peacemongering once saw the lives of his children threatened by John Bolton during the lead-up to the Iraq invasion in an attempt to remove him from his position), WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristinn Hrafnsson , Professor of International Law Richard Falk , former British Army Major General John Holmes , Dr Helmut Lohrer of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, German professor Dr Guenter Meyer of the Centre for Research on the Arab World, and former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East Elizabeth Murray of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
So these are not scrubs. These are not "conspiracy theorists" or "Russian propagandists". These are highly qualified and reputable professionals expressing deep concerns in the opaque and manipulative way the OPCW appears to have conducted its investigation into the Douma incident. Some highlights from their joint statement and analytical points are quoted below, with my own emphasis added in bold:
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma, near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 7 April 2018. We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."
"The convincing evidence of irregular behaviour in the OPCW investigation of the alleged Douma chemical attack confirms doubts and suspicions I already had. I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best. The picture is certainly clearer now, although very disturbing. "
~ Bustani"A critical analysis of the final report of the Douma investigation left the panel in little doubt that conclusions drawn from each of the key evidentiary pillars of the investigation (chemical analysis, toxicology, ballistics and witness testimonies,) are flawed and bear little relation to the facts. "
From the section on Chemical Analysis:
"The interpretation of the environmental analysis results is equally questionable. Many, if not all, of the so-called 'smoking gun' chlorinated organic chemicals claimed to be not naturally present in the environment' (para 2.6) are in fact ubiquitous in the background, either naturally or anthropogenically (wood preservatives, chlorinated water supplies etc). The report, in fact, acknowledges this in Annex 4 para 7, even stating the importance of gathering control samples to measure the background for such chlorinated organic derivatives. Yet, no analysis results for these same control samples (Annex 5), which inspectors on the ground would have gone to great lengths to gather, were reported."
"Although the report stresses the 'levels' of the chlorinated organic chemicals as a basis for its conclusions (para 2.6), it never mentions what those levels were -- high, low, trace, sub-trace? Without providing data on the levels of these so-called 'smoking-gun' chemicals either for background or test samples, it is impossible to know if they were not simply due to background presence . In this regard, the panel is disturbed to learn that quantitative results for the levels of 'smoking gun' chemicals in specific samples were available to the investigators but this decisive information was withheld from the report ."
"The final report also acknowledges that the tell-tale chemicals supposedly indicating chlorine use, can also be generated by contact of samples with sodium hypochlorite, the principal ingredient of household bleaching agent (para 8.15). This game-changing hypothesis is, however, dismissed (and as it transpires, incorrectly) by stating no bleaching was observed at the site of investigation. (' At both locations, there were no visible signs of a bleach agent or discoloration due to contact with a bleach agent' ). The panel has been informed that no such observation was recorded during the on-site inspection and in any case dismissing the hypothesis simply by claiming the non -observation of discoloration in an already dusty and scorched environment seems tenuous and unscientific ."
From the section on Toxicology:
"The toxicological studies also reveal inconsistencies, incoherence and possible scientific irregularities. Consultations with toxicologists are reported to have taken place in September and October 2018 (para 8.87 and Annex 3), but no mention is made of what those same experts opined or concluded. Whilst the final toxicological assessment of the authors states ' it is not possible to precisely link the cause of the signs and symptoms to a specific chemical ' (para 9.6) the report nonetheless concludes there were reasonable grounds to believe chlorine gas was the chemical (used as a weapon)."
"More worrying is the fact that the panel viewed documented evidence that showed other toxicologists had been consulted in June 2018 prior to the release of the interim report. Expert opinions on that occasion were that the signs and symptoms observed in videos and from witness accounts were not consistent with exposure to molecular chlorine or any reactive-chlorine-containing chemical. Why no mention of this critical assessment, which contradicts that implied in the final report, was made is unclear and of concern. "
From the section on Ballistic Studies:
"One alternative ascribing the origin of the crater to an explosive device was considered briefly but, despite an almost identical crater (understood to have resulted from a mortar penetrating the roof) being observed on an adjacent rooftop, was dismissed because of ' the absence of primary and secondary fragmentation characteristics'. In contrast, explosive fragmentation characteristics were noted in the leaked study ."
From the section titled "Exclusion of inspectors and attempts to obfuscate":
"Contrary to what has been publicly stated by the Director General of the OPCW it was evident to the panel that many of the inspectors in the Douma investigation were not involved or consulted in the post-deployment phase or had any contribution to, or knowledge of the content of the final report until it was made public . The panel is particularly troubled by organisational efforts to obfuscate and prevent inspectors from raising legitimate concerns about possible malpractices surrounding the Douma investigation."
I'll leave it there for now.
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Flavius said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 01:21 PMOct 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.
In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates. Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!
Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party air forces (Russia) who support them
This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.
IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession and they are a danger to us all. pl
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/graham-fox-news-star-showed-trump-map-change-his-mind-n1069901
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Syria
Fred , 23 October 2019 at 04:54 PM
If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug cartel?Harlan Easley , 23 October 2019 at 05:35 PMI view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.JohninMK , 23 October 2019 at 05:43 PMIts probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.walrus , 23 October 2019 at 06:42 PMWhilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit.
As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what Congress wants?
At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown.
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply are playing dog-in-the-manger.different clue , 23 October 2019 at 06:54 PMMy guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria.prawnik said in reply to different clue... , 24 October 2019 at 11:25 AMWhy is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.Decameron , 23 October 2019 at 07:03 PMA good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation. Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the region and their customs is a national treasure.Stephanie , 23 October 2019 at 07:06 PMThis President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what the war was about.Babak Makkinejad -> Stephanie... , 23 October 2019 at 08:48 PMNow "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?
Men are quite evidently are in a state of total complete and irretrievable Fall, all the while living that particular Age of Belief.Jackrabbit , 23 October 2019 at 07:39 PMDuring the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.VietnamVet , 23 October 2019 at 07:47 PMColonel,Mk-ec said in reply to VietnamVet... , 24 October 2019 at 07:40 PMThe crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world.
Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence. The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.
Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is chaos.
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etcHarper , 23 October 2019 at 07:49 PMNo doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked. Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.Babak Makkinejad -> Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 08:52 PMMy concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling" Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.
Thoughts?
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said in Persian, has grown a tail.Tidewater said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 24 October 2019 at 01:14 PMDid you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?Lars said in reply to Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 09:10 PMYet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks.
It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.
Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.
Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a cataract.Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:30 AMThey will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to the price.
Lars,Lars said in reply to Jack... , 24 October 2019 at 02:05 PMLose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to be the nominee?
Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a 95% probability of winning the day before the election.
As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that will vote to convict?
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed, there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a stampede.Mk-ec said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 08:20 PMYou can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In addition to circus acts.
I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:29 PMLars,Diana C said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 08:37 AMIt's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an election for the presidency is no small feat.
There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying when he was asked questions.prawnik said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 11:28 AMTrump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.Patrick Armstrong -> prawnik... , 24 October 2019 at 05:06 PMHe could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.
Congratulations are hardly in order here.
The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.The Twisted Genius , 23 October 2019 at 11:33 PMWith the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and became midwife to additional disasters.
It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change.
Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.
With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.Fourth and Long -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 12:01 PM
In case you missed this piece in Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-us-has-plan-send-tanks-troops-secure-syria-oil-fields-amid-withdrawal-1467350Artemesia said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 04:17 PMNo idea here who the un-named pentagon "official" might be, but sounds as thought Gen Keane may not be all alone in his soup.
IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applauseDecepiton , 24 October 2019 at 04:40 AM
We massacred two hundred ruskies in the battle of khasham. What can they do.MSB said in reply to Decepiton... , 24 October 2019 at 03:21 PM
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to the Battle of Khasham.ancientarcher , 24 October 2019 at 11:19 AMhttp://freewestmedia.com/2018/04/11/skripal-affair-real-reason-is-capture-of-200-sas-soldiers-in-ghouta/
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201805211064652345-syrian-army-foreign-military-presence/
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/news--analysis/a-real-h-o-t-war-with-russia-is-underway-right-now
Colonel, thanks for spelling it out so clearly.Larry Kart , 24 October 2019 at 11:39 AMThe difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it.
While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.
"This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth.David said in reply to Linda... , 24 October 2019 at 04:39 PM
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.robt willmann , 24 October 2019 at 12:46 PM
On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/turcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 01:34 PM
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 02:54 PM
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.turcopolier -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:15 PM
TTGThe Twisted Genius -> CK... , 24 October 2019 at 05:21 PMyou are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by. Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon and Zionist.oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 01:49 PM
Bacevich interview:Leith , 24 October 2019 at 01:50 PM
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously.
> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds.
> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous.
> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to happen now with U.S. withdrawal.
> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.
> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say, people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce any more positive results?
> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.
more here, about Tulsi, about Afghanistan, about Trump:
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/24/trump_lifts_turkey_sanctions_syrian_kurds
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:49 PMThis oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of 2018:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-syrian-government-sdf-reach-agreement-on-omar-oil-field/5643086
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?Stephanie said in reply to turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 09:59 PM
Two things.Jane , 24 October 2019 at 05:48 PMIn the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes around comes around?
But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example. Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?
As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry [at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 08:29 PMIt seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the north.
To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in one field and 400 contractors in the other.
There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something they wish to see.
"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.
The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump's earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/24/us-military-syria-tanks-oil-fieldsturcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 09:46 PM
oldman22He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers.
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Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
A whistleblower with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), responsible for conducting an independent investigation into the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, 2018, has presented WikiLeaks with a body of evidence suggesting the chemical weapons watchdog agency manipulated and suppressed evidence .
A prior official OPCW report of the investigation issued last March found "reasonable grounds" for believing a toxic chemical was used against civilians, likely chlorine. Long prior to any independent investigators reaching the site, however, Washington had launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for "Assad gassing his own people" .
WikiLeaks published documents based on evidence presented by the internal OPCW whistleblower to an expert review panel on Wednesday. "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW," WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson wrote.
An official WikiLeaks press release said as follows :
Kristinn Hrafnsson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the OPCW whistleblower. He says: "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW. Although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and/or present documents to the public, WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the public to see everything that was collected by the Fact Finding Mission on Douma and all scientific reports written in relation to the investigation."
"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out.
"We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."
The testimony further revealed "disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns , highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments."
The new information was enough to convince José Bustani, former director-general of the OPCW to conclude there is now "convincing evidence" of irregularities .
According to a summary of the latest controversy to cast doubt on the dominant mainstream narrative related to Douma, Middle East analysis site Al-Bab noted Bustain harbored prior doubts :
Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best."
Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria.
spam filter , 4 minutes ago link
boattrash , 2 minutes ago link"Because of my great wisdom as a stable genius, i launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for Assad gassing his own people" .
I am Ironman!
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?monty42 , 41 seconds ago link...to appease the neocons...he killed a total of 3 ground squirrels.
NA X-15 , 6 minutes ago linkTell that to the Syrians who were killed, both soldiers and civilians, as well as those having to pay for the lost property that was destroyed. It was thrown out there, purely out of thin air, that nothing of substance was hit and it was just a show by Trump, despite reports by those terrorized by the attacks.
Arising , 12 minutes ago linkIt's the same lying neocon **** that cried out "Darfur!"..."Donbass!"...the exact same lying ****. **** them all to hell, I wish I could exterminate their voices forever.
Chupacabra-322 , 16 minutes ago linkI have reposted these wikileaks documents on many different sites, especially the one's where the intelligence agencies are active.
I want them to know that we know.
Meximus , 23 minutes ago linkThe Gas Lighting, PsyOp & False Flags will continue until the masses are completely Frightened & Brainwashed.
US Interference and Regime Change PsyOp
"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."
Regime change is the only reason we or any of our proxies are there. We have NO GOOD REASON being there other than this BS.
- The US Congress has not approved the US being in Syria.
- The UN Security Council has not approved the US presence in Syria.
- President Assad of Syria did not invite the US or approve the US presence in Syria.
- Only the US deep state neocons have approved the US presence in the context of "regime change".
I mean C'mon now? These Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Deep State CIA, MI6, Mossad Psychopaths couldn't write up a different Scripted False Narrative PsyOp to sell to the World & American People.
CHEM ATTACK PART III RETURN OF THE ASSAD.
The Lack of creativity among those in the Pentagram & Deep Staters is downright pathetic.
Bolton was nothing more than a mere Agent of Chaos with his mission the for continuation of the Yinon Plan.
I'd respect them more if they'd just said, "we seeking regime change to secure the better interests of Israel, the US & World Community."
Wink, wink, nod, nod...those better interest are the Qatari Pipeline to provide continued SA & Petro Dollar Hegemony among Vassel States. While simultaneously eliminating Russia's & Gasprom's ability to supply European Oil.
ebworthen , 49 minutes ago linkThe french are having misgivings in supporting this war crime. They are now talking with russia to normalize relations.
Soon we will go from FUKUS to just UKK (united **** kingdom) .
NA X-15 , 51 minutes ago linkPeople are still believing the chemical attack canard? Seriously?
Assad wears a suit and protects Christians and Jews; as does Russia.
I can't say the same for the U.S.A., other than protecting Christians and Jews connected to Wall Street.
From Day One, nobody believed the neocon ******** about the alleged "gassings".
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Oct 01, 2025 | tass.com
Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin © Vadim Grishankin/Russian Defense Ministry's press service/TASS BEIJING, October 25. /TASS/. The drones that attacked Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Syria were operated from the US Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Colonel General Alexander Fomin said at a plenary session of the Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security on Thursday.
"Thirteen drones moved according to common combat battle deployment, operated by a single crew. During all this time the American Poseidon-8 reconnaissance plane patrolled the Mediterranean Sea area for eight hours," he noted. Read also Three layers of Russian air defense at Hmeymim air base in Syria When the drones met with the electronic countermeasures of the Russian systems, they switched to a manual guidance mode, he said. "Manual guidance is carried out not by some villagers, but by the Poseidon-8, which has modern equipment. It undertook manual control," the deputy defense minister noted.
"When these 13 drones faced our electronic warfare screen, they moved away to some distance, received the corresponding orders and began to be operated out of space and receiving help in finding the so-called holes through which they started penetrating. Then they were destroyed," Fomin reported.
"This should be stopped as well: in order to avoid fighting with the high-technology weapons of terrorists and highly-equipped terrorists it is necessary to stop supplying them with equipment," the deputy defense minister concluded.
The Russian Defense Ministry earlier said that on January 6 militants in Syria first massively used drones in the attack on the Russian Hmeymim airbase and the Russian naval base in Tartus. The attack was successfully repelled: seven drones were downed, and control over six drones was gained through electronic warfare systems. The Russian Defense Ministry stressed that the solutions used by the militants could be received only from a technologically advanced country and warned about the danger of repeating such attacks in any country of the world.
The forumThe eighth Beijing Xiangshan Forum on security will run until October 26 in Beijing. It was organized by the Chinese Ministry of Defense, China Association for Military Science (CAMS) and China Institute for International Strategic Studies (CIISS). Representatives for defense ministries, armed forces and international organizations, as well as former military officials, politicians and scientists from 79 countries are taking part in the forum.
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Sep 17, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
A retired Australian diplomat who served in Moscow dissects the emergence of the new Cold War and its dire consequences.
I n 2014, we saw violent U.S.-supported regime change and civil war in Ukraine. In February, after months of increasing tension from the anti-Russian protest movement's sitdown strike in Kiev's Maidan Square, there was a murderous clash between protesters and Ukrainian police, sparked off by hidden shooters (we now know that were expert Georgian snipers) , aiming at police. The elected government collapsed and President Yanukevich fled to Russia, pursued by murder squads.
The new Poroshenko government pledged harsh anti-Russian language laws. Rebels in two Russophone regions in Eastern Ukraine took local control, and appealed for Russian military help. In March, a referendum took place in Russian-speaking Crimea on leaving Ukraine, under Russian military protection. Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to join Russia, a request promptly granted by the Russian Parliament and President. Crimea's border with Ukraine was secured against saboteurs. Crimea is prospering under its pro-Russian government, with the economy kick-started by Russian transport infrastructure investment.
In April, Poroshenko ordered full military attack on the separatist provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk in Eastern Ukraine. A brutal civil war ensued, with aerial and artillery bombardment bringing massive civilian death and destruction to the separatist region. There was major refugee outflow into Russia and other parts of Ukraine. The shootdown of MH17 took place in July 2014.
Poroshenko: Ordered military attack.
By August 2015, according to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates, 13,000 people had been killed and 30,000 wounded. 1.4 million Ukrainians had been internally displaced, and 925,000 had fled to neighbouring countries, mostly Russia and to a lesser extent Poland.
There is now a military stalemate, under the stalled Minsk peace process. But random fatal clashes continue, with the Ukrainian Army mostly blamed by UN observers. The UN reported last month that the ongoing war has affected 5.2 million people, leaving 3.5 million of them in need of relief, including 500,000 children. Most Russians blame the West for fomenting Ukrainian enmity towards Russia. This war brings back for older Russians horrible memories of the Nazi invasion in 1941. The Russia-Ukraine border is only 550 kilometres from Moscow.
Flashpoint Syria
Russian forces joined the civil war in Syria in September 2015, at the request of the Syrian Government, faltering under the attacks of Islamist extremist rebel forces reinforced by foreign fighters and advanced weapons. With Russian air and ground support, the tide of war turned. Palmyra and Aleppo were recaptured in 2016. An alleged Syrian Government chemical attack at Khan Shaykhun in April 2017 resulted in a token U.S. missile attack on a Syrian Government airbase: an early decision by President Trump.
NATO, Strategic Balance, Sanctions
An F-15C Eagle from the 493rd Fighter Squadron takes off from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, March 6, 2014. The 48th Fighter Wing sent an additional six aircraft and more than 50 personnel to support NATO's air policing mission in Lithuania, at the request of U.S. allies in the Baltics. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Emerson Nunez/Released)
Tensions have risen in the Baltic as NATO moves ground forces and battlefield missiles up to the Baltic states' borders with Russia. Both sides' naval and air forces play dangerous brinksmanship games in the Baltic. U.S. short-range, non-nuclear-armed anti-ballistic missiles were stationed in Poland and Romania, allegedly against threat of Iranian attack. They are easily convertible to nuclear-armed missiles aimed at nearby Russia.
Nuclear arms control talks have stalled. The INF intermediate nuclear forces treaty expired in 2019, after both sides accused the other of cheating. In March 2018, Putin announced that Russia has developed new types of intercontinental nuclear missiles using technologies that render U.S. defence systems useless. The West has pretended to ignore this announcement, but we can be sure Western defence ministries have noted it. Nuclear second-strike deterrence has returned, though most people in the West have forgotten what this means. Russians know exactly what it means.
Western economic sanctions against Russia continue to tighten after the 2014 events in Ukraine. The U.S. is still trying to block the nearly completed Nordstream Baltic Sea underwater gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Sanctions are accelerating the division of the world into two trade and payments systems: the old NATO-led world, and the rest of the world led by China, with full Russian support and increasing interest from India, Japan, ROK and ASEAN.
Return to Moscow
In 2013, my children gave me an Ipad. I began to spend several hours a day reading well beyond traditional mainstream Western sources: British and American dissident sites, writers like Craig Murray in UK and in the U.S. Stephen Cohen, and some Russian sites – rt.com, Sputnik, TASS, and the official Foreign Ministry site mid.ru. in English.
In late 2015 I decided to visit Russia independently to write Return to Moscow , a literary travel memoir. I planned to compare my impressions of the Soviet Union, where I had lived and worked as an Australian diplomat in 1969-71, with Russia today. I knew there had been huge changes. I wanted to experience 'Putin's Russia' for myself, to see how it felt to be there as an anonymous visitor in the quiet winter season. I wanted to break out of the familiar one-dimensional hostile political view of Russia that Western mainstream media offer: to take my readers with me on a cultural pilgrimage through the tragedy and grandeur and inspiration of Russian history. As with my earlier book on Spain 'Walking the Camino' , this was not intended to be a political book, and yet somehow it became one.
I was still uncommitted on contemporary Russian politics before going to Russia in January 2016. Using the metaphor of a seesaw, I was still sitting somewhere around the middle.
My book was written in late 2015 – early 2016, expertly edited by UWA Publishing. It was launched in March 2017. By this time my political opinions had moved decisively to the Russian end of the seesaw, on the basis of what I had seen in Russia, and what I had read and thought during the year.
I have been back again twice, in winter 2018 and 2019. My 2018 visit included Crimea, and I happened to see a Navalny-led Sunday demonstration in Moscow. I thoroughly enjoyed all three independent visits: in my opinion, they give my judgements on Russia some depth and authenticity.
Russophobia Becomes Entrenched
Russia was a big talking point in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the initially unlikely Republican candidate Donald Trump's chances improved, anti-Putin and anti-Russian positions hardened in the outgoing Obama administration and in the Democratic Party establishment which backed candidate Hillary Clinton.
Russia and Putin became caught up in the Democratic Party's increasingly obsessive rage and hatred against the victorious Trump. Russophobia became entrenched in Washington and London U.S. and UK political and strategic elites, especially in intelligence circles: think of Pompeo, Brennan, Comey and Clapper. All sense of international protocol and diplomatic propriety towards Russia and its President was abandoned, as this appalling Economist cover from October 2016 shows.
My experience of undeclared political censorship in Australia since four months after publication of 'Return to Moscow' supports the thesis that:
We are now in the thick of a ruthless but mostly covert Anglo-American alliance information war against Russia. In this war, individuals who speak up publicly in the cause of detente with Russia will be discouraged from public discourse.
In the Thick of Information War
When I spoke to you two years ago, I had no idea how far-reaching and ruthless this information war is becoming. I knew that a false negative image of Russia was taking hold in the West, even as Russia was becoming a more admirable and self-confident civil society, moving forward towards greater democracy and higher living standards, while maintaining essential national security. I did not then know why, or how.
I had just had time to add a few final paragraphs in my book about the possible consequences for Russia-West relations of Trump's surprise election victory in November 2016. I was right to be cautious, because since Trump's inauguration we have seen the step-by-step elimination of any serious pro-detente voices in Washington, and the reassertion of control over this haphazard president by the bipartisan imperial U.S. deep state, as personified from April 2018 by Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Adviser Bolton. Bolton has now been thrown from the sleigh as decoy for the wolves: under the smooth-talking Pompeo, the imperial policies remain.
Truth, Trust and False Narratives
Let me now turn to some theory about political reality and perception, and how national communities are persuaded to accept false narratives. Let me acknowledge my debt to the fearless and brilliant Australian independent online journalist, Caitlin Johnstone.
Behavioural scientists have worked in the field of what used to be called propaganda since WW1. England has always excelled in this field. Modern wars are won or lost not just on the battlefield, but in people's minds. Propaganda, or as we now call it information warfare, is as much about influencing people's beliefs within your own national community as it is about trying to demoralise and subvert the enemy population.
The IT revolution of the past few years has exponentially magnified the effectiveness of information warfare. Already in the 1940s, George Orwell understood how easily governments are able to control and shape public perceptions of reality and to suppress dissent. His brilliant books 1984 and Animal Farm are still instruction manuals in principles of information warfare. Their plots tell of the creation by the state of false narratives, with which to control their gullible populations.
The disillusioned Orwell wrote from his experience of real politics. As a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War, he saw how both Spanish sides used false news and propaganda narratives to demonise the enemy. He also saw how the Nazi and Stalinist systems in Germany and Russia used propaganda to support show trials and purges, the concentration camps and the Gulag, anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, German master race and Stalinist class enemy ideologies; and hows dissident thought was suppressed in these controlled societies. Orwell tried to warn his readers: all this could happen here too, in our familiar old England. But because the good guys won the war against fascism, his warnings were ignored.
We are now in Britain, U.S. and Australia actually living in an information warfare world that has disturbing echoes of the world that Orwell wrote about. The essence of information control is the effective state management of two elements, trust and fear , to generate and uphold a particular view of truth. Truth, trust and fear : these are the three key elements, now as 100 years ago in WWI Britain.
People who work or have worked close to government – in departments, politics, the armed forces, or top universities – mostly accept whatever they understand at the time to be 'the government view' of truth. Whether for reasons of organisational loyalty, career prudence or intellectual inertia, it is usually this way around governments. It is why moral issues like the Vietnam War and the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq were so distressing for people of conscience working in or close to government and military jobs in Canberra. They were expected to engage in 'doublethink' as Orwell had described it:
Even in Winston's nightmare world, there were still choices – to retreat into the non-political world of the proles, or to think forbidden thoughts and read forbidden books. These choices involved large risks and punishments. It was easier and safer for most people to acquiesce in the fake news they were fed by state-controlled media.
'Trust, Truth and False Narratives'
Fairfax journalist Andrew Clark, in the Australian Financial Review , in an essay optimistically titled "Not fake news: Why truth and trust are still in good shape in Australia", (AFR Dec. 22, 2018), cited Professor William Davies thus:
"Most of the time, the edifice that we refer to as "truth" is really an investment of trust in our structures of politics and public life' 'When trust sinks below a certain point, many people come to view the entire spectacle of politics and public life as a sham."
Here is my main point: Effective information warfare requires the creation of enough public trust to make the public believe that state-supported lies are true.
The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining.
Caitlin Johnstone a few days ago put it this way:
" Power is being able to control what happens. Absolute power is being able to control what people think about what happens. If you can control what happens, you can have power until the public gets sick of your BS and tosses you out on your ass. If you can control what people think about what happens, you can have power forever. As long as you can control how people are interpreting circumstances and events, there's no limit to the evils you can get away with."
The Internet has made propaganda campaigns that used to take weeks or months a matter of hours or even minutes to accomplish. It is about getting in quickly, using large enough clusters of trusted and diverse sources, in order to cement lies in place, to make the lies seem true, to magnify them through social messaging: in other words, to create credible false narratives that will quickly get into the public's bloodstream.
Over the past two years, I have seen this work many times: on issues like framing Russia for the MH17 tragedy; with false allegations of Assad mounting poison gas attacks in Syria; with false allegations of Russian agents using lethal Novichok to try to kill the Skripals in Salisbury; and with the multiple lies of Russiagate.
It is the mind-numbing effect of constant repetition of disinformation by many eminent people and agencies, in hitherto trusted channels like the BBC or ABC or liberal Anglophone print media that gives the system its power to persuade the credulous. For if so many diverse and reputable people repeatedly report such negative news and express such negative judgements about Russia or China or Iran or Syria, surely they must be right?
We have become used to reading in our quality newspapers and hearing on the BBC and ABC and SBS gross assaults on truth, calmly presented as accepted facts. There is no real public debate on important facts in contention any more. There are no venues for dissent outside contrarian social media sites.
Sometimes, false narratives inter-connect. Often a disinformation narrative in one area is used to influence perceptions in other areas. For example, the false Skripals poisoning story was launched by British intelligence in March 2018, just in time to frame Syrian President Assad as the guilty party in a faked chemical weapons attack in Douma the following month.
The Skripals Gambit
The Skripals gambit was also a failed British attempt to blight the Russia –hosted Football World Cup in June 2018. In the event, hundreds of thousands of Western sports fans returned home with the warmest memories of Russian good sportsmanship and hospitality.
How do I know the British Skripals narrative is false? For a start, it is illogical, incoherent, and constantly changes. Allegedly, two visiting Russian FSB agents in March 2018 sprayed or smeared Novichok, a deadly toxin instantly lethal in the most microscopic quantities, on the Skripals' house front doorknob. There is no video footage of the Skripals at their front door on the day. We are told they were found slumped on a park bench, and that is maybe where they had been sprayed with nerve gas? Shortly afterwards, Britain's Head of Army Nursing who happened to be passing by found them, and supervised their hospitalisation and emergency treatment.
Allegedly, much of Salisbury was contaminated by Novichok, and one unfortunate woman mysteriously died weeks later, yet the Skripals somehow did not die, as we are told. But where are they now? We saw a healthy Yulia in a carefully scripted video interview released in May 2018, after an alleged 'one in a million' recovery. We were assured her father had recovered too, but nobody has seen him at all. The Skripals have simply disappeared from sight since 16 months ago. Are they now alive or dead? Are they in voluntary or involuntary British custody?
A month after the poisoning, the UK Government sent biological samples from the Skripals to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , for testing. The OPCW sent the samples to a trusted OPCW laboratory in Spiez, Switzerland.
Lavrov Spiez BZ claims, April 2018
A few days later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dramatically announced in Moscow that the Spiez lab had found in the samples a temporary-effect nerve agent BZ, used by U.S. and UK but not by Russia, that would have disabled the Skripals for a few days without killing them. He also revealed the Spiez lab had found that the Skripal samples had been twice tampered with while still in UK custody: first soon after the poisoning, and again shortly before passing them to the OPCW. He said the Spiez lab had found a high concentration of Novichok, which he called A- 234, in its original form. This was extremely suspicious as A-234 has high volatility and could not have retained its purity over a two weeks period. The dosage the Spiez lab found in the samples would have surely killed the Skripals. The OPCW under British pressure rejected Lavrov's claim, and suppressed the Spiez lab report.
Let's look finally at the alleged assassins.
'Boshirov and Petrov'
These two FSB operatives who visited Salisbury under the false identities of 'Boshirov' and 'Petrov' did not look or behave like credible assassins. It is more likely that they were sent to negotiate with Sergey Skripal about his rumoured interest in returning to Russia. They needed to apply for UK visas a month in advance of travel: ample time for the British agencies to identify them as FSB operatives, and to construct a false attempted assassination narrative around their visit. This false narrative repeatedly trips over its own lies and contradictions. British social media are full of alternative theories and rebuttals. Russians find the whole British Government Skripal narrative laughable. They have invented comedy skits and video games based on it. Yet it had major impact on Russia-West relations.
The Douma False Narrative
I turn now to the claimed Assad chemical weapons attack in Douma in April 2018.This falsely alleged attack triggered a major NATO air attack on Syrian targets, ordered by Trump. We came close to WWIII in these dangerous days. Thanks to the restraint of the then Secretary of Defence James Mattis and his Russian counterparts, the risk was contained.
The allegation that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used outlawed chemical weapons against his own people was based solely on the evidence of faked video images of child victims, made by the discredited White Helmets, a UK-sponsored rebel-linked 'humanitarian' propaganda organisation with much blood on its hands. Founded in 2013 by a British private security specialist of intelligence background, James Le Mesurier, the White Helmets specialised in making fake videos of alleged Assad regime war crimes against Syrian civilians. It is by now a thoroughly discredited organisation that was prepared to kill its prisoners and then film their bodies as alleged victims of government chemical attacks.
White Helmets
As the town of Douma was about to fall to advancing Syrian Government forces, the White Helmets filled a room with stacked corpses of murdered prisoners, and photographed them as alleged victims of aerial gas attack. They also made a video alleging child victims of this attack being hosed down by White Helmets. A video of a child named Hassan Diab went viral all over the Western world.
Hassan Diab later testified publicly in The Hague that he had been dragged terrified from his family by force, smeared with some sort of grease, and hosed down with water as part of a fake video. He went from hero to zero overnight, as Western governments and media rejected his testimony as Russian and Syrian propaganda.
In a late development, there is proof that the OPCW suppressed its own engineers' report from Douma that the alleged poison gas cylinders could not have possibly been dropped from the air through the roof of the house where one was found, resting on a bed under a convenient hole in the roof.
I could go on discussing the detail of such false narratives all day. No matter how often they are exposed by critics, our politicians and mainstream media go on referencing them as if they are true. Once people have come to believe false narratives, it is hard to refute them.
So it is with the false narrative that Russian internet interference enabled Trump to win the 2016 U.S. presidential elections: a thesis for which no evidence was found by [Special Counsel Robert] Mueller, yet continues to be cited by many U.S. liberal Democratic media as if it were true. So, even, with MH17.
Managing Mass Opinion
This mounting climate of Western Russophobia is not accidental: it is strategically directed, and it is nourished with regular maintenance doses of fresh lies. Each round of lies provides a credible platform for the next round somewhere else. The common thread is a claimed malign Russian origin for whatever goes wrong.
So where is all this disinformation originating? Information technology firms in Washington and London that are closely networked into government elites, often through attending the same establishment schools or colleges like Eton and Yale, have closely studied and tested the science of influencing crowd opinions through mainstream media and online. They know, in a way that Orwell or Goebbels could hardly have dreamt, how to put out and repeat desired media messages. They know what sizes of 'internet attraction nodes' need to be established online, in order to create diverse critical masses of credible Russophobic messaging, which then attracts enough credulous and loyal followers to become self-propagating.
Firms like the SCL Group (formerly Strategic Communication Laboratories) and the now defunct Cambridge Analytica pioneered such work in the UK. There are many similar firms in Washington, all in the business of monitoring, generating and managing mass opinion. It is big business, and it works closely with the national security state.
Starting in November 2018, an enterprising group of unknown hackers in the UK , who go by the name 'Anonymous', opened a remarkable window into this secret world. Over a few weeks, they hacked and dumped online a huge volume of original documents issued by and detailing the activities of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS) and the Integrity initiative (II). Here is the first page of one of their dumps, exposing propaganda against Jeremy Corbyn.
We know from this material that the IfS and II are two secret British disinformation networks operating at arms' length from but funded by the UK security services and broader UK government establishment. They bring together high-ranking military and intelligence personnel, often nominally retired, journalists and academics, to produce and disseminate propaganda that serves the agendas of the UK and its allies.
Stung by these massive leaks, Chris Donnelly, a key figure in IfS and II and a former British Army intelligence officer, made a now famous seven-minute YouTube video in December 2018, artfully filmed in a London kitchen, defending their work.
He argued – quite unconvincingly in my opinion – that IfS and II are simply defending Western societies against disinformation and malign influence, primarily from Russia. He boasted how they have set up in numerous targeted European countries, claimed to be under attack from Russian disinformation, what he called 'clusters of influence' , to 'educate' public opinion and decision-makers in pro-NATO and anti-Russian directions.
Donnelly spoke frankly on how the West is already at war with Russia, a 'new kind of warfare', in which he said 'everything becomes a weapon'. He said that 'disinformation is the issue which unites all the other weapons in this conflict and gives them a third dimension'.
He said the West has to fight back, if it is to defend itself and to prevail.
We can confirm from the Anonymous leaked files the names of many people in Europe being recruited into these clusters of influence. They tend to be significant people in journalism, publishing, universities and foreign policy think-tanks: opinion-shapers. The leaked documents suggest how ideologically suitable candidates are identified: approached for initial screening interviews; and, if invited to join a cluster of influence, sworn to secrecy.
Remarkably, neither the Anonymous disclosures nor the Donnelly response have ever been reported in Australian media. Even in Britain – where evidence that the Integrity Initiative was mounting a campaign against [Labour leader] Jeremy Corbyn provoked brief media interest. The story quickly disappeared from mainstream media and the BBC. A British under-foreign secretary admitted in Parliamentary Estimates that the UK Foreign Office subsidises the Institute of Statecraft to the tune of nearly 3 million pounds per year. It also gives various other kinds of non-monetary assistance, e.g. providing personnel and office support in Britain's overseas embassies.
This is not about traditional spying or seeking agents of influence close to governments. It is about generating mass disinformation, in order to create mass climates of belief.
In my opinion, such British and American disinformation efforts, using undeclared clusters of influence, through Five Eyes intelligence-sharing, and possibly with the help of British and American diplomatic missions, may have been in operation in Australia for many years.
Such networks may have been used against me since around mid-2017, to limit the commercial outreach of my book and the impact of its dangerous ideas on the need for East-West detente; and efficiently to suppress my voice in Australian public discourse about Russia and the West. Do I have evidence for this? Yes.
It is not coincidence that the Melbourne Writers Festival in August 2017 somehow lost all my sign-and-sell books from my sold-out scheduled speaking event; that a major debate with [Australian writer and foreign policy analyst] Bobo Lo at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne was cancelled by his Australian sponsor, the Lowy institute, two weeks before the advertised date; that my last invitation to any writers festival was 15 months ago, in May 2018; that Return to Moscow was not shortlisted for any Australian book prize, though I entered it in all of them ; that since my book's early promotion ended around August 2017, I have not been invited to join any ABC discussion panels, or to give any talks on Russia in any universities or institutes, apart from the admirable Australian Institute of International Affairs and the ISAA.
My articles and shorter opinion commentaries on Russia and the West have not been published in mainstream media or in reputable online journals like Eureka Street, The Conversation, Inside Story or Australian Book Review . Despite being an ANU Emeritus Fellow, I have not been invited to give a public talk or join any panel in ANU (Australian National University) or any Canberra think tank. In early 2018, I was invited to give a private briefing to a group of senior students travelling on an immersion course to Russia. I was not invited back in 2019, after high-level private advice within ANU that I was regarded as too pro-Putin.
In all these ways – none overt or acknowledged – my voice as an open-minded writer and speaker on Russia-West relations seems to have been quietly but effectively suppressed in Australia. I would like to be proved wrong on this, but the evidence is there.
This may be about "velvet-glove deterrence" of my Russia-sympathetic voice and pen, in order to discourage others, especially those working in or close to government. Nobody is going to put me in jail, unless I am stupid enough to violate Australia's now strict foreign influence laws. This deterrence is about generating fear of consequences for people still in their careers, paying their mortgages, putting kids through school. Nobody wants to miss their next promotion.
There are other indications that Australian national security elite opinion has been indoctrinated prudently to fear and avoid any kind of public discussion of positive engagement with Russia (or indeed, with China).
There are only two kinds of news about Russia now permitted in our mainstream media, including the ABC and SBS: negative news and comment, or silence. Unless a story can be given an anti-Russian sting, it will not be carried at all. Important stories are simply spiked, like last week's Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivistok, chaired by President Putin and attended by Prime Ministers Abe, Mahathir and Modi, among 8500 participants from 65 countries.
The ABC idea of a balanced panel to discuss any Russian political topic was exemplified in an ABC Sunday Extra Roundtable panel chaired by Eleanor Hall on July, 22 2018, soon after the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki. The panel – a former ONA Russia analyst, a professor of Soviet and Russian History at Melbourne University, and a Russian émigré dissident journalist introduced as the 'Washington correspondent for Echo of Moscow radio' spent most of their time sneering at Putin and Trump. There were no other views.
A powerful anti-Russian news narrative is now firmly in place in Australia, on every topic in contention: Ukraine, MH17, Crimea, Syria, the Skripals, Navalny and public protest in Russia. There is ill-informed criticism of Russia, or silence, on the crucial issues of arms control and Russia-China strategic and economic relations as they affect Australia's national security or economy. There is no analysis of the negative impact on Australia of economic sanctions against Russia. There is almost no discussion of how improved relations with China and Russia might contribute to Australia's national security and economic welfare, as American influence in the world and our region declines, and as American reliability as an ally comes more into question. Silence on inconvenient truths is an important part of the disinformation tool kit.
I see two overall conflicting narratives – the prevailing Anglo-American false narrative; and valiant efforts by small groups of dissenters, drawing on sources outside the Anglo-American official narrative, to present another narrative much closer to truth. And this is how most Russians now see it too.
The Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki in July 2018 was damaged by the Skripal and Syria fabrications. Trump left that summit friendless, frightened and humiliated. He soon surrendered to the power of the U.S. imperial state as then represented by [Mike] Pompeo and [John] Bolton, who had both been appointed as Secretary of State and National Security Adviser in April 2018 and who really got into their stride after the Helsinki Summit. Pompeo now smoothly dominates Trump's foreign policy.
Self-Inflicted Wounds
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Gage Skidmore)
Finally, let me review the American political casualties over the past two years – self-inflicted wounds – arising from this secret information war against Russia. Let me list them without prejudging guilt or innocence. Slide 20 – Self-inflicted wounds: casualties of anti-Russian information warfare.
Trump's first National Security Adviser, the highly decorated Michael Flynn lost his job after only three weeks, and soon went to jail. His successor H R McMaster lasted 13 months until replaced by John Bolton. Trump's first Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lasted just 14 months until his replacement by Trump's appointed CIA chief (in January 2017) Mike Pompeo. Trump's chief strategist Steve Bannon lasted only seven months. Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is now in jail.
Defence Secretary James Mattis lasted nearly two years as Secretary of Defence, and was an invaluable source of strategic stability. He resigned in December 2018. The highly capable Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman lasted just two years: he is resigning next month. John Kelly lasted 18 months as White House Chief of Staff. Less senior figures like George Papadopoulos and Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen both served jail time. The pattern I see here is that people who may have been trying responsibly as senior U.S. officials to advance Trump's initial wish to explore possibilities for detente with Russia – policies that he had advocated as a candidate – were progressively purged, one after another . The anti-Russian U.S. bipartisan imperial state is now firmly back in control. Trump is safely contained as far as Russia is concerned .
Russians do not believe that any serious detente or arms control negotiations can get under way while cold warriors like Pompeo continue effectively to control Trump. There have been other casualties over the past two years of tightening American Russophobia. Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning come to mind. The naive Maria Butina is a pathetic victim of American judicial rigidity and deep state vindictiveness.
False anti-Russian Government narratives emanating from London and Washington may be laughed at in Moscow , but they are unquestioningly accepted in Canberra. We are the most gullible of audiences. There is no critical review. Important contrary factual information and analysis from and about Russia just does not reach Australian news reporting and commentary, nor – I fear – Australian intelligence assessment. We are prisoners of the false narratives fed to us by our senior Five Eyes partners U.S. and UK.
To conclude: Some people may find what I am saying today difficult to accept. I understand this. I now work off open-source information about Russia with which many people here are unfamiliar, because they prefer not to read the diverse online information sources that I choose to read. The seesaw has tilted for me: I have clearly moved a long way from mainstream Western perceptions on Russia-West relations.
Under Trump and Pompeo, as the Syria and Iran crises show, the present risk of global nuclear war by accident or incompetent Western decision-making is as high as it ever was in the Cold War. The West needs to learn again how to dialogue usefully and in mutually respectful ways with Russia and China. This expert knowledge is dying with our older and wiser former public servants and ex-military chiefs.
These remarks were delivered by Tony Kevin at the Independent Scholars Association of Australia in Canberra, Australia on Wednesday.
Watch Tony Kevin interviewed Friday night on CN Live!
Tony Kevin is a retired Australian diplomat who was posted to Moscow from 1969 to 1971, and was later Australia's ambassador to Poland and Cambodia. His latest book is Return to Moscow, published by UWA Publishing.
Bruce , September 17, 2019 at 08:58
Excellent article. It's very interesting to see how the state and its media lackey set the narrative.
Most of this comment relates to the Skripals but also applies to other matters (the Skripals writing was some of Craig Murray's finest work in my opinion). One of the hallmarks of a hoax is a constantly evolving storyline. I think governments have learned from past "mistakes" with their hoaxes/deception where they've given a description of events and then scientists/engineers/chemists etc have come in and criticised their version of events with details and scientific arguments. Nowadays, governments are very reluctant to commit to a version of events, and instead rely on the media (their propaganda assets) to provide a scattergun set of information to muddy the waters and thoroughly confuse the population. The government is then insulated from some of the more bizarre allegations (the headlines of which are absorbed nonetheless), and can blame it on the media (who would use an anonymous government source naturally). Together with classifying just about everything on national security grounds, they can stonewall for as long as they want.
The British are masters of propaganda. They maintained a global empire for a very long time, and the prevailing view (in the west at least) was probably one of tea-drinking cricket playing colonials/gentlemen. But you don't maintain an empire without being absolutely ruthless and brutal. They've been doing this for a very long time.
When we hear something from the BBC or ABC, we should think "State Media".
That's probably why its got a nice folksy nickname of "aunty" .build up the trust.Leslie Louis , September 17, 2019 at 04:00
Society is suffering the extreme paradox; there is the potential for everyone to have a voice, but the last vestiges of free speech have been whittled away. Fake news is universal, assisted by the fake "left". It is impossible to get published any challenge to even the most outlandish versions of identity politics. As the experience of Tony Kevin exemplifies, all avenues for dissent against hegemonic orthodoxies are closed off.
Disinformation is now an essential weapon in waging hot and cold wars. Cold War historians are well informed on false flags, "black ops", and other organised dirty tactics. I do not know what happened to the Skripals, and while it is legitimate to bear in mind KGB assassinations, despite the enormous resources at its disposal, the English security state has been unable to construct a credible case. Surely scepticism is provoked by the leading role being played by the notorious Bellingcat outfit.Zenobia van Dongen , September 17, 2019 at 00:29
Here is part of an eyewitness account:
"After the Orange Revolution which began in Kiev, the country was divided literally into two parts -- the supporters of integration with Russia and the supporters of an independent Ukraine. For almost 100 years belonging to the Soviet Union, the propaganda about the assistance and care from our "big brother" Russia, in Ukraine as a whole and the Donbass in particular has borne fruit. At the end of February 2014, some cities of the Southeast part were boiling with mass social and political protest against the new Ukrainian government in defense of the status of the Russian language, voicing separatist and pro-Russian slogans. The division took place in our city of Sloviansk too. Some people stood for separation from Ukraine, while Ukrainian patriots stood for the unity of our country.
On April 12, 2014 our city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region was seized by Russian mercenaries and local volunteers. From that moment onward, armed assaults on state institutions began. The city police department, the Sloviansk City Hall, the building of the Ukraine Security Service was occupied. Armed militants seized state institutions and confiscated private property. They threatened and beat people, and those who refused to obey were taken away to an unknown destination and people started disappearing. The persecution and abduction of patriotic citizens began."Michael McNulty , September 16, 2019 at 11:36
Watching Vietnam news coverage as a kid in the '60s I noticed the planes carpet-bombing South East Asia were American, not Russian. And as I only watched the footage and never listened to the commentary (I was waiting for the kids programs that followed) the BS they came out with to explain it all never reached me. I saw with my own eyes what the US really was and is, and always believed growing up they were the belligerent side not Russia. Once the USSR fell it was clear there were no longer any constraints on US excesses.
dean 1000 , September 15, 2019 at 18:17
Doublethink, not to mention doublespeak, is so apt to describe what is happening. If Orwell was writing today it would have to be classified as non-fiction.
Free speech is impossible unless every election district has a radio/TV station where candidates, constituents, and others can debate, discuss and speak to the issues without bending a knee to large campaign contributors or the controllers of corporate or government media. It may start with low-power pirate radio/TV broadcasts. No, the pirate speakers will not have to climb a cell tower to broadcast an opinion to the neighborhood or precinct.
If genuine free speech is going to exist it will start as something unauthorized and unlawful. If it sticks to the facts it will quickly prove its value.Download a free pdf copy of '1984.' https://www.planetebook.com/free-ebooks/1984.pdf
Njegos , September 15, 2019 at 03:39
Excellent article. The only exhibit missing was reference to Bill Browder's lies. Browder's rubbish has been exposed by intrepid journalists and documentary makers such as Andrei Nekrasov, Sasha Krainer and Lucy Komisar but to read or listen to our media, you'd think BB was some sort of human rights hero. That's because BB's fairy tale fits nicely into the MSM's hatred of Putin and Russia. Debunk Browder and a major pillar of anti-Russia prejudice collapses. Therefore, Browder will never face any serious questions by the MSM.
John A , September 16, 2019 at 09:18
judges of the European Court of Human Rights published a judgement a fortnight ago which utterly exploded the version of events promulgated by Western governments and media in the case of the late Mr Magnitskiy. Yet I can find no truthful report of the judgement in the mainstream media at all.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/the-magnitskiy-myth-exploded/MSM propaganda by omission. Anything that doesn't fit the government narrative gets zero publicity.
Jim Ingram , September 14, 2019 at 21:12
Well said and needing to be said Tony.
Mr. Dan , September 14, 2019 at 19:41
I have stopped following australian mainstream media including the darlings of the 'left' ABC/SBS over a decade ago, completely. My disgust with their 'coverage' of the 2008 GFC was more than enough. Since 2008-9 things have deteriorated drastically into conspiracy theory propaganda by omission la-la land *it seems*, given I don't tune in at all.
The author has a well supported view. I find it a little naive in him thinking that the MSM has that much power over shaping public opinion in australia.
People who want to be informed do so. The half intelligent conformists on hamster wheel of lifetime mortgage debt have 'careers' to hold onto, so parroting the group think or living in ignorance is much easier. The massive portion of australian racists, inbred bogans and idiots that make up the large LNP, One Nation etc. voting block are completely beyond salvation or ability to process, and critically evaluate any information. The smarter ones drool on about the 'UN Agenda 21' conspiracy at best. Utterly hopeless.
I don't expect things to change as the australian economy is slowly hollowed out by the rich, and the education system (that has always been about conforming, wearing school uniform and regurgitating what the teacher/lecturer says at best) is gutted completely. Welcome to australistan.
Fran Macadam , September 14, 2019 at 19:21
Note that the prohibition against false propaganda to indoctrinate the domestic population by the American government was lifted by President Obama at the tail end of his administration. The Executive Order legalizes all the deceptive behavior Tony itemizes in his article.
Josep , September 17, 2019 at 04:10
I thought it was Reagan who did that by abolishing the Fairness Doctrine in 1987. At least in terms of television and radio (?) broadcasts.
Stephen Morrell , September 14, 2019 at 19:02
Thank you Tony for your thoughtful talk (and interview on CN Live! too).
What's encouraging is this cohort of what might be called 'millennial journalists' coming through willing to do 'shoe-leather' journalism and stand up to smears and flack for revealing uncomfortable facts and truth. They're the online 5th estate holding the 4th to account (to steal Ray McGovern's apt view), and they're congealing against the onslaught.
Some include Max Blumenthal and Rania Kahlek (both now being pilloried by MSM and others for visiting Syrian government held areas and reporting that life isn't hellish as MSM would have everyone believe heaven forbid); Vanessa Bealey who's exposed a lot of White Helmet horrors and false-flag attacks in Syria (and being attacked by all and sundry for exposing the White Helmets in particular); Abby Martin whose Empire Files are excellent and always edifying; Dan Cohen who has written the best expose of the actors behind the Hong Kong rioting and co-authored the best expose of the background of Guaido et al.; Whitney Webb of Mint Press whose series on Epstein is overwhelming and likely a ticking timebomb; Caitlin Johnstone of course; and Aaron 'Buzzsaw' Mate who made his first mark with a wonderful takedown interview of Russiaphobe MI6 shill Luke Harding. Others too of course, with most appearing or having written pieces on CN. John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Greg Palast, et al. won't drop off their twigs disappointed.
This, along with the fact that MSM -- that cowed and compromised fourth estate -- increasingly is held in such laughable contempt by most people under about 50 yr, is highly encouraging indeed. Truth is the new black.
nwwoods , September 15, 2019 at 11:49
The Blogmire is an excellent resource for detailed analysis of the Skripal hoax. The author happens to be a long-time resident of Salisbury, and is intimately familiar with the topography, public services, etc., and a very thorough investigator.
John Wright , September 14, 2019 at 18:35
I'm not surprised that Mr. Kevin is being isolated and shunned by the Australian establishment. Truth and truth tellers are always the first casualties of war. I do hope that his experience will encourage him to increase his resistance to the corrosiveness of mendacious propaganda and those who promulgate it.
Truth is the single best weapon when fighting for a peaceful future.
If Australia is to flourish in the 21st century, it really needs to understand Russia and China, how they relate to each other, and how this key alliance will interface with the rest of the world. Australia and Australians simply cannot afford to get sucked down further by facilitating the machinations of the collapsing Anglo-American Empire. They have served the empire ably and faithfully, but now need to take a cold hard look at reality and realign their long-term interests with the coming global power shift. If not, they could literally find themselves in the middle of an unwinnable and devastating war.
* * *
The first Anglo-American Russian cold war began with the Russian revolution and was only briefly suspended when the West needed the Soviet people to throw themselves in front of the Nazi blitzkrieg in order to save Western Europe. Following their catastrophically costly contribution to the victory on the Continent, the Russians were greeted with an American nuclear salute on their eastern periphery, signalling their return to the diplomatic and economic deep freeze.
While the Anglo-American Empire solidified and extended its hold on the globe, the enlarged but war-ravaged and isolated Soviet Union hunkered down and survived on scraps and sheer will until its collapse in 1989. Declaring the cold war over, and with promises to help their new Russian friends build a prosperous future, the duplicitous West then ransacked their neighbors resources and sold them into debt peonage. The Russians cried foul, the West shrugged and Putin pushed back. Unable to declaw the bear, the west closed the cage door again and the second cold war commenced.
* * *
The first cold war was essentially an offensive war disguised as a defensive war. It enabled the Anglo-American Empire to leverage its post-war advantage and establish near total dominance around the globe through naked violence and monetary hegemony.
Today, with its dominance rapidly slipping away, the Anglo-American Empire is waging a truly defensive cold war. On the home front, they fight to convince their subjects of their eternal exceptionalism with ever more absurd and vile propaganda denigrating their adversaries . Abroad, they disrupt and defraud in a desperate attempt to delay the demise of the PetroDollar ponzi.
The Russians and the Chinese, having both been brutally burned by the Western elites, will not be fooled into abandoning their natural geographic partnership. They are no longer content to sit quietly at the kids' table taking notes. While they may not demand to sit at the head of the table, it is clear that they will insist on a round table, and one that is large enough to include their growing list of friends.
If the Americans don't smash the table, it could be the first of many peaceful pot lucks.
John Read , September 15, 2019 at 02:11
Well said. Great comments. Thanks to Tony Kevin.
Mia , September 14, 2019 at 18:33
Thank you Tony for continuing to shine light on the pathetic propaganda information bubble Australians have been immersed in .. you demonstrate great courage and you are not alone ??
Peter Loeb , September 14, 2019 at 12:58
WITH THANKS TO TONY KEVIN
An excellent article.
There is a lack of comments from some of the common writers upon whose views I often rely.
Personally, I often avoid the very individual responses from websites as I have no way
of checking out previous ideas of theirs. Who funds them? With which organizations are they
affiliated? And so forth and so on.Peter Loeb, Boston, Massachusetts
Peter Sapo , September 14, 2019 at 10:24
As a fellow Australian, everything Tony Kevin said makes perfect sense. Our mainstream media landscape is designed to distribute propaganda to folk accross the political spectrum. Have you noticed that the ABC regurgitates stories from the BBC? The BBC has a long history (at least since WW2) of supporting government propaganda initiatives. Based on this fact, it is hard to see how ABC and SBS don't do the same when called upon by their minders.
Francis Lee , September 14, 2019 at 09:48
I just wonder where the Anglo-Zionist empire thinks it is going. It should be obvious that any NATO war against Russia involving a nuclear exchange is unwinnable. It seems equally likely the even a conventional war will not necessarily bring the result expected by the assorted 'experts' – nincompoops living in their own fantasy world. The idea that the US can fight a war without the US homeland becoming very much involved basically ended when Putin announced the creation of Russia's set of advanced hypersonic missile system. But this was apparently ignored by the 'defence' establishment. It was not true, it could not possibly be true, or so we were told.
Moreover the cost of such wars involving hundreds of thousands of troops and military hardware are massively expensive and would occasion a massive resistance from the populations affected. It was the wests wars in Korea, and Indo-China that bankrupted the US and led to the US$ being removed from the gold standard. The American military is rapidly consuming the American economy, or at least what is left of it. From a realist foreign policy perspective this is simply madness. Great powers end wars, they don't start them. Great powers are creditor nations, not debtor nations. Such is the realist foreign policy view. But foreign policy realists are few and far between in the Washington Beltway and MIC/NSA Pentagon and US/UK/AUSTRALIAN MSM.
Thus the neo-hubris of the English speaking world is such that if it is followed to its logical conclusion then total annihilation would be the logical outcome. A sad example of not very bright people who face no domestic opposition, believing in their own bullshit:
"American elites proved themselves to be master manipulators of propaganda constructs But the real danger from such manipulations arises not when those manipulations are done out of knowledge of reality, which is distorted for propaganda purposes, but when those who manipulation begin to sincerely believe in their own falsifications and when they buy into their own narrative. They stop being manipulators and they become believers in a narrative. They become manipulated themselves." (Losing Military Supremacy – Andrei, Martyanov)
Or maybe just the whole thing is a bluff. Those policy elites maybe just want to loot the US Treasury for more cash to be put their way.
John Wright , September 15, 2019 at 19:15
The self-serving Israeli Zionists know that the American cow is running dry and their days of freely milking it are coming to an end. They have an historic relationship with Russia and, leveraging their nuclear arsenal, know they can make a deal with the emerging China-Russia-centric global paradigm to extort enough protection to maintain their armed enclave for the foreseeable future. Their no so hidden alliance with the equally sociopathic Saudis will become even more obvious for all to see.
Israel, like China and Russia, knows how to play a long game. Thus, Israel will consolidate its land grab with the just announced expansion into the Jordan Valley and quietly continue as much ethnic cleansing as possible while the rest of the world is preoccupied with the incipient global power shift (True victims of history, the Palestinians have no real friends). While they will bemoan the loss of their muscular American stooge, Israel enjoyed a very lucrative 70 year run and will part with a pile of useful and deadly toys. They're also fully aware that no one else will ever let them take advantage to the degree they've been able to with the U.S.A. (Unlimited Stupidity of Arrogance?)
Eventually, the social schizophrenia that is the state of Israel will catch up with them and they will implode. Let's hope that breakdown doesn't involve the use of their nuclear arsenal.
Yes, the U.S. Treasury will continue to be looted until the last teller turns the lights out or the electricity is shut off, whichever comes first.
The Western transnational financial elites will accept their losses, regroup and make deals with the new bosses where they can; but their days of running the game unopposed are over.
Today is a good day to learn Mandarin (or Russian, if you prefer to live in Europe).
Bill , September 16, 2019 at 03:36
Very well said and I agree with a lot of what you say.
Tiu , September 14, 2019 at 06:01
Won't be too long before writing articles like this will get you busted for "hate-speech" (e.g. anything that is contrary to the official version prescribed by the "democratically elected" government)
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/uk-tony-blair-think-tank-proposes-end-free-speech
Personally I always encourage people to read George Orwell, especially 1984. We're there, and have been for a long time.geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 01:15
Tony Kevin – Nice rundown of what ails society. You have a fine writing style that gets the point across to the reader. Kudos and cheers.
Michael , September 13, 2019 at 22:34
The 'modernization' of the Smith Mundt Act in 2013 "to authorize the domestic dissemination of information and material [PROPAGANDA] about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences" was a major nail in the Democracy coffin, consolidating the blatant ruling of the US Police State by our 17 Intelligence Agencies (our betters). The Telecommunications Act of 1996 lead to ownership of (>80%) of our media (the MSM by a handful of owners, all disseminating the same narratives from above (CIA, State Department, FBI etc) and squelching any dissenting views, particularly related to foreign policies.
Tony's article sadly just confirms the depth and breadth of our Global Stasi, with improved, innovative and (mostly) subtle surveillance, and the controlling constant interference with alternate viewpoints and discussions, the real basis for free societies. It is bad enough to be ruled by neoliberal psychopathic hyenas and jackals, soon we won't be able to even bitch about what they are doing.Tom Kath , September 13, 2019 at 21:42
The most impressive article I have read in a very long time. I congratulate and thank Tony.
I have myself recently addressed the issue of whether it is a virtue to have an "open mind". – The ability to be converted or have your mind changed, or is it the ability to change your own mind ?
Tony Kevin clearly illustrates the difference.Litchfield , September 13, 2019 at 16:11
Great article.
Please keep writing.
Do start a website, a la Craig Murray.
There are people who are proactively looking for alternative viewpoints and informed analysis.
How about starting a website and publishing some excerpts of your book there?Or, sell chapters separately by download from your website?
You could also have a discussion blog/forum there.John Zimmermann , September 13, 2019 at 16:02
Excellent essay. Thanks Mr. Kevin.
rosemerry , September 13, 2019 at 15:37
At least Tony Kevin was an Australian ambassador, not like Mike Morrell and the chosen russop?obes the USA assumes are needed as diplomats!! Now he is treated as Stephen Cohen is- a true expert called "controversial" as he dares to go by real facts and evidence, not prejudice.
If instead of enemies, the West could consider getting to understand those they are wary of, and give them a chance to explain their point of view and actually listen and reflect on it.
(Dmitri Peskov valiantly explained the Russian official response as soon as the "Skripal poisoning" story broke, but it was fully ignored by UK/US media, while all of Theresa May's fanciful imaginings were respectfully relayed to the public).geeyp , September 14, 2019 at 23:26
As you usually are with your comments, you are spot on again, rosemerry.
Martin - Swedish citizen , September 13, 2019 at 14:46
Excellent article!
I find the mechanics of how the propaganda is spread and the illusion upheld the most important part of this article, since this knowledge is required to counter it.
When (not if) the fraud becomes more common knowledge, our societies are likely to tumble.Pablo Diablo , September 13, 2019 at 14:45
Whoever controls the media, controls the dialogue.
Whoever controls the dialogue, controls the agenda.peter mcloughlin , September 13, 2019 at 13:40
' The present risk of global nuclear war is as high as it ever was in the Cold War.' And possibly higher. The Cold War, though dangerous, was the peace. The world has experienced periods of peace (or relative peace) throughout history. The Thirty Years Peace between the two Peloponnesian Wars, Pax Romana, Europe in the 19th century after the Congress of Vienna, to name a few. The Congress System finally collapsed in 1914 with the start of World War One. That conflict was followed by the League of Nations. It did not stop World War Two. That was followed by the United Nations and other post-war institutions. But all the indications are they will not prevent a third world war. The powers that are leading us towards conflagration see this as a re-run of the first Cold War. They are dangerously mistaken.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/Guy , September 13, 2019 at 13:21
With so many believing the lies ,how will this mess ever come to light . I don't reside in Australia but anywhere in the Western world the shakedown is the same .In my own house ,the discussion on world politics descends into absolute stupidity . As one can't get past the constant programming that has settled in the minds of the comfortable with the status quo of lies by our media. There are intelligent sources of news sources but none get past the absolutely complete control of MSM.So the bottom line is ,for now ,the lies and liars are winning the propaganda war.
Anton Antonovich , September 13, 2019 at 13:16
He speaks the truth. Liars and dissemblers have won over the minds and hearts of so many lazy shameful citizens who will not accept the truth Tony Kevin wants to share with the world.
junaid , September 13, 2019 at 13:08
Washington resumes military assistance to Kyiv. According to American lawmakers, Ukraine is fighting one of the main enemies. "Contain Russia": what the US pays for Ukraine
Lily , September 13, 2019 at 23:42
The Pentagon is using the Ukrainian territory for experiments on chemical weapons.
John A , September 14, 2019 at 06:55
Anyone or article who spells Kiev as Kyiv can be safely ignored as western anti-Russia propaganda. It's a true tell.
Robert Edwards , September 13, 2019 at 12:53
The Cold war is totally manufacture to keep the dollars flowing into the MIC – what a sham . and a disgrace to humanity.
Cavaleiro Marginal , September 13, 2019 at 12:52
"The key tools are repetition of messages, and diversification of trusted voices. Once a critical mass is created of people believing a false narrative, the lie locks in: its dissemination becomes self-sustaining."
This had occurred in Brazil since the very first day of Lula's presidency. Eleven years late, 2013, a color revolution began. Nobody (and I mean REALLY nobody) could realize a color revolution was happening at that time. In 2016, Dilma Rousseff was kicked from power throughout a ridiculous and illegal coup perpetrated by the parliament. In 2018 Lula was imprisoned in an Orwellian process; illegal, unconstitutional, with nothing (REALLY nothing) proved against him. Then a liar clown was elected to suppress democracy
I knew on the news that in Canada and Australia the police politely (how civilized ) went to some journalist's homes to have a chat this year. Canadians and Aussies, be aware. The fascism's dog is a policial state very well informed by the propaganda they call news.
Robert Fearn , September 13, 2019 at 12:48
As a Canadian author who wrote a book about various tragic American government actions, like Vietnam, I can relate to the difficulties Tony has had with his book. I would mail my book, Amoral America, from Canada to other countries, like the US, and it would never arrive. Book stores would not handle it, etc. etc.
Josep , September 17, 2019 at 05:21
Not to disagree, but some years ago I read about anecdotes of anti-Americanism in Canada, coming from both USians and Canadians, whether it be playful banter or legitimate criticism. I believe it is more concentrated among the people than among the governmental elites (with the exception of the Iraq War era when both the people and the government were against it). And considering what you describe in your book and the difficulty you've faced in distributing it abroad, maybe the said people are on to something.
Stephen , September 13, 2019 at 11:44
This interview by Abby Martin with Mark Ames is a little dated but is a fairly accurate history. I post it to try and counter the nonsense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7HwvFyMg7A
All the empire wants is to do it all again.
Jeremy Kuzmarov , September 13, 2019 at 10:33
Outstanding article and analysis. Thank you Sir! Jeremy Kuzmarov
Jeff Harrison , September 13, 2019 at 10:17
Thank you, sir. A far better peroration than I could have produced but what I have concluded nonetheless.
Skip Scott , September 13, 2019 at 10:10
Fantastic article. Left unmentioned is the origin of the west's anti-Russia narrative. Russia was being pillaged by the west under Yeltsin, and Russia was to become our newest vassal. Life expectancy dropped a full decade for the average Russian under Yeltsin. The average standard of living dropped dramatically as well. Putin reversed all that, and enjoys massive popular support as a result. The Empire will never tolerate a national leader who works for the benefit of the average citizen. It must be full-on rape, pillage and plunder- OR ELSE. Keep that in mind as we watch the latest theatrical performances by our DNC controlled "Commander in Chief" wannabes.
Realist , September 17, 2019 at 05:48
?The ongoing success of the "Great Lie" (that Washington is protecting the entire world from
anarchy perpetrated by a few bad actors on the global stage) and all of its false narrative subtexts
(including but far from limited to the Maidan, Crimea, Donbass, MH-17, the Skripals, gassing
"one's own people," piracy on the high Mediterranean, etc) just underscores how successful was
the false flag operation known as 9-11, even as the truth of that travesty is slowly being
unraveled by relentless truth-seekers applying logic and the scientific method to the problem.
Most Americans today would gladly concur, if queried, that Osama bin Laden was most certainly
a perfidious tool of Russia and its diabolical leader, Mr. Putin (be sure to call him "Vlad," to
conjure up images of Dracula for effect). The Winston Smith's are rare birds in America or in
any of its reliable vassal states. Never mind that the spooks from Langley (and the late
"chessmaster") concocted and orchestrated all these tales from the crypt.Lily , September 13, 2019 at 07:54
Great summary of the developement of a new cold war. The narrative of the Mainstream Media is dangerous as well as laughable. I am glad to hear the Russian reaction to this bullshit propaganda. As often the people are so much wiser than their government – at least in the West.
During the Football WM a famous broadcaster of the German State TV channel ARD, who is a giftet propagandist, regrettet publicly the difficulty to convince the stubborn Germans to look at Russia as an enemy because they have started to look at Russia as a friend long ago.
Contrary to the people and the big firms who are completely against the sanctions against Russia and 100 % pro Northstream the German government with Chancelor Merkel is one of the top US vassalles. Even the Green Party which started as an environmental and peace party are now against North Stream and in favour of the filthy US fracking gas thanks to NATO propaganda although Russia has never let them down. Most of "Die Grünen" party have been turned into fervent friends of our American occupants which is very sad.
Thank you Tony Kevin. It has been great to read your article. I cant wait to read your book 'Return to Moscow' and to watch your interview on CN Live.
Godfree Roberts , September 13, 2019 at 07:37
Good summary of the status quo. From my experience of writing similarly about China, precisely the same policies and forces are at work.
The good news is that they are failing.
junaid , September 13, 2019 at 07:15
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced the end of the war in Syria and the country's return to a state of peace. "Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced the end of the war
"Syria is returning to normal life": Lavrov announced the end of the war
Gezzah Potts , September 13, 2019 at 05:47
You hit several nails squarely on the head with your excellent article Tony. Thank you for the truth of how the media is in Australia. It is indeed chilling where all this is leading. The blatant lies just spewed out as fact by both ABC and SBS. They, in my opinion are nothing but stenographers for the Empire, of which Australia is a fully subservient vassal state, with no independence.
I try to boycott all Australian presstitutes . Oops, I mean 'media' now. Occasionally, I do slip up and watch SBS or The Drum or News on ABC.
Virtually all my news comes from independent news sites like this one.
I have been accused of being a 'Putin lover', a Russian troll, a conspiracy theorist, while people I know have claimed that "Putin is a monster whose murdered millions of people".
On and on this crap goes. And the end result? Ask Stephen Cohen. Things are very surreal now. Sadly, you've been made an Unperson Tony.Robyn , September 13, 2019 at 04:08
Bravo, Tony, great article. I enjoyed your book and recommend it to CN readers who haven't yet read it.
The world looks entirely different when one stops reading/watching the MSM and turns to CN, Caitlin Johnstone and many others who are doing a sterling job.
Cascadian , September 13, 2019 at 03:52
I don't know which is worse, to not know what you are (reliably uninformed) and be happy, or to become what you've always wanted to be (reliably informed) and feel alone.
Realist , September 14, 2019 at 00:19
Knowing the truth has always seemed paramount to me, even if it means realising that the entire world and all in it are damned, and deliberately by our own actions. Hope is always the last part of our essence to die, or so they say: maybe we will somehow be redeemed through our own self-immolation as a species.
Deb , September 13, 2019 at 02:54
As an Australian I have no difficulty accepting what Tony Kevin has said here. He should do what Craig Murray has done start a website.
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Jun 27, 2019 | www.aljazeera.com
Sixty-six years later, I am witnessing how another "Ugly American" is walking in the footsteps of Roosevelt. His name is John Bolton, a chief advocate of the disastrous US invasion of Iraq, a nefarious Islamophobe, and former chairman of the far-right anti-Muslim Gatestone Institute. This infamous institution is known for spreading lies about Muslims - claiming there is a looming "jihadist takeover" that can lead to a "Great White Death" - to incite hatred against them and intimidate, silence, and alienate them.
In his diabolical plans to wage war on Iran, Bolton is taking a page from Roosevelt's playbook. Just as the CIA operative used venal Iranian politicians and fake news to incite against the democratically elected Iranian government, today his successor, the US national security adviser, is seeking to spread misinformation on a massive scale and set up a false flag operation with the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a militant terrorist organisation. Meanwhile, he has also pressed forward with debilitating sanctions that are further worsening the economic crisis in the country and making the lives of ordinary Iranians unbearable.
... ... ...
Bolton is the dreadful residue of the pure violence and wanton cruelty that drive Zionist Christian zealots in their crusades against Muslims. He is the embodiment of the basest and most racist roots of American imperialism.
The regime he serves is the most naked and vulgar face of brutish power, lacking any semblance of legitimacy - a bullying coward flexing its military muscles. At its helm is an arrogant mercantile president, who - faced with the possibility of an impeachment - has no qualms about using the war machine at his disposal to regain political relevance and line his pockets.
But the world must know Americans are not all ugly, they are not all rabid imperialists - Boltons and Roosevelts. What about those countless noble Americans - the sons and daughters of the original nations that graced this land, of the African slaves who were brought to this land in chains, of the millions after millions of immigrants who came to these shores in desperation or hope from the four corners of the earth? Do they not have a claim on this land too - to redefine it and bring it back to the bosom of humanity?
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Jun 19, 2019 | www.unz.com
Early in any psychology course, students are taught to be very cautious about accepting people's reports. A simple trick is to stage some sort of interruption to the lecture by confederates, and later ask the students to write down what they witnessed. Typically, they will misremember the events, sequences and even the number of people who staged the tableaux. Don't trust witnesses, is the message.
Another approach is to show visual illusions, such as getting estimates of line lengths in the Muller-Lyer illusion, or studying simple line lengths under social pressure, as in the Asch experiment, or trying to solve the Peter Wason logic problems, or the puzzles set by Kahneman and Tversky. All these appear to show severe limitations of human judgment. Psychology is full of cautionary tales about the foibles of common folk.
As a consequence of this softening up, psychology students come to regard themselves and most people as fallible, malleable, unreliable, biased and generally irrational. No wonder psychologists feel superior to the average citizen, since they understand human limitations and, with their superior training, hope to rise above such lowly superstitions.
However, society still functions, people overcome errors and many things work well most of the time. Have psychologists, for one reason or another, misunderstood people, and been too quick to assume that they are incapable of rational thought?
Gerd Gigerenzer thinks so.
https://www.nowpublishers.com/article/OpenAccessDownload/RBE-0092
He is particularly interested in the economic consequences of apparent irrationality, and whether our presumed biases really result in us making bad economic decisions. If so, some argue we need a benign force, say a government, to protect us from our lack of capacity. Perhaps we need a tattoo on our forehead: Diminished Responsibility.
The argument leading from cognitive biases to governmental paternalism -- in short, the irrationality argument -- consists of three assumptions and one conclusion:
1. Lack of rationality. Experiments have shown that people's intuitions are systematically biased.
2. Stubbornness. Like visual illusions, biases are persistent and hardly corrigible by education.
3. Substantial costs. Biases may incur substantial welfare-relevant costs such as lower wealth, health, or happiness.
4. Biases justify governmental paternalism. To protect people from theirbiases, governments should "nudge" the public toward better behavior.
The three assumptions -- lack of rationality, stubbornness, and costs -- imply that there is slim chance that people can ever learn or be educated out of their biases; instead governments need to step in with a policy called libertarian paternalism (Thaler and Sunstein, 2003).
So, are we as hopeless as some psychologists claim we are? In fact, probably not. Not all the initial claims have been substantiated. For example, it seems we are not as loss averse as previously claimed. Does our susceptibility to printed visual illusions show that we lack judgement in real life?
In Shepard's (1990) words, "to fool a visual system that has a full binocular and freely mobile view of a well-illuminated scene is next to impossible" (p. 122). Thus, in psychology, the visual system is seen more as a genius than a fool in making intelligent inferences, and inferences, after all, are necessary for making sense of the images on the retina.
Most crucially, can people make probability judgements? Let us see. Try solving this one:
A disease has a base rate of .1, and a test is performed that has a hit rate of .9 (the conditional probability of a positive test given disease) and a false positive rate of .1 (the conditional probability of a positive test given no disease). What is the probability that a random person with a positive test result actually has the disease?
Most people fail this test, including 79% of gynaecologists giving breast screening tests. Some researchers have drawn the conclusion that people are fundamentally unable to deal with conditional probabilities. On the contrary, there is a way of laying out the problem such that most people have no difficulty with it. Watch what it looks like when presented as natural frequencies:
Among every 100 people, 10 are expected to have a disease. Among those 10, nine are expected to correctly test positive. Among the 90 people without the disease, nine are expected to falsely test positive. What proportion of those who test positive actually have the disease?
In this format the positive test result gives us 9 people with the disease and 9 people without the disease, so the chance that a positive test result shows a real disease is 50/50. Only 13% of gynaecologists fail this presentation.
Summing up the virtues of natural frequencies, Gigerenzer says:
When college students were given a 2-hour course in natural frequencies, the number of correct Bayesian inferences increased from 10% to 90%; most important, this 90% rate was maintained 3 months after training (Sedlmeier and Gigerenzer, 2001). Meta-analyses have also documented the "de-biasing" effect, and natural frequencies are now a technical term in evidence-based medicine (Akiet al., 2011; McDowell and Jacobs, 2017). These results are consistent with a long literature on techniques for successfully teaching statistical reasoning (e.g., Fonget al., 1986). In sum, humans can learn Bayesian inference quickly if the information is presented in natural frequencies.
If the problem is set out in a simple format, almost all of us can all do conditional probabilities.
I taught my medical students about the base rate screening problem in the late 1970s, based on: Robyn Dawes (1962) "A note on base rates and psychometric efficiency". Decades later, alarmed by the positive scan detection of an unexplained mass, I confided my fears to a psychiatrist friend. He did a quick differential diagnosis on bowel cancer, showing I had no relevant symptoms, and reminded me I had lectured him as a student on base rates decades before, so I ought to relax. Indeed, it was false positive.
Here are the relevant figures, set out in terms of natural frequencies
Every test has a false positive rate (every step is being taken to reduce these), and when screening is used for entire populations many patients have to undergo further investigations, sometimes including surgery.
Setting out frequencies in a logical sequence can often prevent misunderstandings. Say a man on trial for having murdered his spouse has previously physically abused her. Should his previous history of abuse not be raised in Court because only 1 woman in 2500 cases of abuse is murdered by her abuser? Of course, whatever a defence lawyer may argue and a Court may accept, this is back to front. OJ Simpson was not on trial for spousal abuse, but for the murder of his former partner. The relevant question is: what is the probability that a man murdered his partner, given that she has been murdered and that he previously battered her.
Accepting the figures used by the defence lawyer, if 1 in 2500 women are murdered every year by their abusive male partners, how many women are murdered by men who did not previously abuse them? Using government figures that 5 women in 100,000 are murdered every year then putting everything onto the same 100,000 population, the frequencies look like this:
So, 40 to 5, it is 8 times more probable that abused women are murdered by their abuser. A relevant issue to raise in Court about the past history of an accused man.
Are people's presumed biases costly, in the sense of making them vulnerable to exploitation, such that they can be turned into a money pump, or is it a case of "once bitten, twice shy"? In fact, there is no evidence that these apparently persistent logical errors actually result in people continually making costly errors. That presumption turns out to be a bias bias.
Gigerenzer goes on to show that people are in fact correct in their understanding of the randomness of short sequences of coin tosses, and Kahneman and Tversky wrong. Elegantly, he also shows that the "hot hand" of successful players in basketball is a real phenomenon, and not a stubborn illusion as claimed.
With equal elegance he disposes of a result I had depended upon since Slovic (1982), which is that people over-estimate the frequency of rare risks and under-estimate the frequency of common risks. This finding has led to the belief that people are no good at estimating risk. Who could doubt that a TV series about Chernobyl will lead citizens to have an exaggerated fear of nuclear power stations?
The original Slovic study was based on 39 college students, not exactly a fair sample of humanity. The conceit of psychologists knows no bounds. Gigerenzer looks at the data and shows that it is yet another example of regression to the mean. This is an apparent effect which arises whenever the predictor is less than perfect (the most common case), an unsystematic error effect, which is already evident when you calculate the correlation coefficient. Parental height and their children's heights are positively but not perfectly correlated at about r = 0.5. Predictions made in either direction will under-predict in either direction, simply because they are not perfect, and do not capture all the variation. Try drawing out the correlation as an ellipse to see the effect of regression, compared to the perfect case of the straight line of r= 1.0
What diminishes in the presence of noise is the variability of the estimates, both the estimates of the height of the sons based on that of their fathers, and vice versa. Regression toward the mean is a result of unsystematic, not systematic error (Stigler,1999).
Gigerenzer also looks at the supposed finding that people are over-confidence in predictions, and finds that it is another regression to the mean problem.
Gigerenzer then goes on to consider that old favourite, that most people think they are better than average, which supposedly cannot be the case, because average people are average.
Consider the finding that most drivers think they drive better than average. If better driving is interpreted as meaning fewer accidents, then most drivers' beliefs are actually true. The number of accidents per person has a skewed distribution, and an analysis of U.S. accident statistics showed that some 80% of drivers have fewer accidents than the average number of accidents (Mousavi and Gigerenzer, 2011)
Then he looks at the classical demonstration of framing, that is to say, the way people appear to be easily swayed by how the same facts are "framed" or presented to the person who has to make a decision.
A patient suffering from a serious heart disease considers high-risk surgery and asks a doctor about its prospects.
The doctor can frame the answer in two ways:
Positive Frame: Five years after surgery, 90% of patients are alive.
Negative Frame: Five years after surgery, 10% of patients are dead.Should the patient listen to how the doctor frames the answer? Behavioral economists say no because both frames are logically equivalent (Kahneman, 2011). Nevertheless, people do listen. More are willing to agree to a medical procedure if the doctor uses positive framing (90% alive) than if negative framing is used (10% dead) (Moxeyet al., 2003). Framing effects challenge the assumption of stable preferences, leading to preference reversals. Thaler and Sunstein (2008) who presented the above surgery problem, concluded that "framing works because people tend to be somewhat mindless, passive decisionmakers" (p. 40)
Gigerenzer points out that in this particular example, subjects are having to make their judgements without knowing a key fact: how many survive without surgery. If you know that you have a datum which is more influential. These are the sorts of questions patients will often ask about, and discuss with other patients, or with several doctors. Furthermore, you don't have to spin a statistic. You could simply say: "Five years after surgery, 90% of patients are alive and 10% are dead".
Gigerenzer gives an explanation which is very relevant to current discussions about the meaning of intelligence, and about the power of intelligence tests:
In sum, the principle of logical equivalence or "description invariance" is a poor guide to understanding how human intelligence deals with an uncertain world where not everything is stated explicitly. It misses the very nature of intelligence, the ability to go beyond the information given (Bruner, 1973)
The key is to take uncertainty seriously, take heuristics seriously, and beware of the bias bias.
One important conclusion I draw from this entire paper is that the logical puzzles enjoyed by Kahneman, Tversky, Stanovich and others are rightly rejected by psychometricians as usually being poor indicators of real ability. They fail because they are designed to lead people up the garden path, and depend on idiosyncratic interpretations.
For more detail: http://www.unz.com/jthompson/the-tricky-question-of-rationality/
Critics of examinations of either intellectual ability or scholastic attainment are fond of claiming that the items are "arbitrary". Not really. Scholastic tests have to be close to the curriculum in question, but still need to a have question forms which are simple to understand so that the stress lies in how students formulate the answer, not in how they decipher the structure of the question.
Intellectual tests have to avoid particular curricula and restrict themselves to the common ground of what most people in a community understand. Questions have to be super-simple, so that the correct answer follows easily from the question, with minimal ambiguity. Furthermore, in the case of national scholastic tests, and particularly in the case of intelligence tests, legal authorities will pore over the test, looking at each item for suspected biases of a sexual, racial or socio-economic nature. Designing an intelligence test is a difficult and expensive matter. Many putative new tests of intelligence never even get to the legal hurdle, because they flounder on matters of reliability and validity, and reveal themselves to be little better than the current range of assessments.
In conclusion, both in psychology and behavioural economics, some researchers have probably been too keen to allege bias in cases where there are unsystematic errors, or no errors at all. The corrective is to learn about base rates, and to use natural frequencies as a guide to good decision-making.
Don't bother boosting your IQ. Boost your understanding of natural frequencies.
res , says: June 17, 2019 at 3:29 pm GMT
Good concrete advice. Perhaps even more useful for those who need to explain things like this to others than for those seeking to understand for themselves.ThreeCranes , says: June 17, 2019 at 3:34 pm GMT"intelligence deals with an uncertain world where not everything is stated explicitly. It misses the very nature of intelligence, the ability to go beyond the information given (Bruner, 1973)"Tom Welsh , says: June 18, 2019 at 8:36 am GMT"The key is to take uncertainty seriously, take heuristics seriously, and beware of the bias bias."
Why I come to Unz.
@Cortes Sounds fishy to me.Biff , says: June 18, 2019 at 10:16 am GMTActually I think this is an example of an increasingly common genre of malapropism, where the writer gropes for the right word, finds one that is similar, and settles for that. The worst of it is that readers intuitively understand what was intended, and then adopt the marginally incorrect usage themselves. That's perhaps how the world and his dog came to say "literally" when they mean "figuratively". Maybe a topic for a future article?
In 2009 Google finished engineering a reverse search engine to find out what kind of searches people did most often. Seth Davidowitz and Steven Pinker wrote a very fascinating/entertaining book using the tool called Everybody Liesdearieme , says: June 18, 2019 at 11:25 am GMThttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28512671-everybody-lies
Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender, and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn't vote for Barack Obama because he's black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives, and who's more self-conscious about sex, men or women?
Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential – revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we're afraid to ask that might be essential to our health – both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data every day, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.
I shall treat this posting (for which many thanks, doc) as an invitation to sing a much-loved song: everybody should read Gigerenzer's Reckoning with Risk. With great clarity it teaches what everyone ought to know about probability.Anon [410] • Disclaimer , says: June 18, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT(It could also serve as a model for writing in English about technical subjects. Americans and Britons should study the English of this German – he knows how, you know.)
Inspired by "The original Slovic study was based on 39 college students" I shall also sing another favorite song. Much of Psychology is based on what small numbers of American undergraduates report they think they think.
" Gigerenzer points out that in this particular example, subjects are having to make their judgements without knowing a key fact: how many survive without surgery. "Cortes , says: June 18, 2019 at 4:14 pm GMTThis one reminds of the false dichotomy. The patient has additional options! Like changing diet, and behaviours such as exercise, elimination of occupational stress , etc.
The statistical outcomes for a person change when the person changes their circumstances/conditions.
@Tom Welsh A disposition (conveyance) of an awkwardly shaped chunk out of a vast estate contained reference to "the slither of ground bounded on or towards the north east and extending two hundred and twenty four meters or thereby along a chain link fence " Not poor clients (either side) nor cheap lawyers. And who never erred?Tom Fix , says: June 18, 2019 at 4:25 pm GMTBetter than deliberately inserting "errors" to guarantee a stream of tidy up work (not unknown in the "professional" world) in future.
Good article. 79% of gynaecologists fail a simple conditional probability test?! Many if not most medical research papers use advanced statistics. Medical doctors must read these papers to fully understand their field. So, if medical doctors don't fully understand them, they are not properly doing their job. Those papers use mathematical expressions, not English. Converting them to another form of English, instead of using the mathematical expressions isn't a solution.SafeNow , says: June 18, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMTRegarding witnesses: When that jet crashed into Rockaway several years ago, a high percentage of witnesses said that they saw smoke before the crash. But there was actually no smoke. The witnesses were adjusting what they saw to conform to their past experience of seeing movie and newsreel footage of planes smoking in the air before a crash. Children actually make very good witnesses.Anon [724] • Disclaimer , says: June 18, 2019 at 9:48 pm GMTRegarding the chart. Missing, up there in the vicinity of cancer and heart disease. The third-leading cause of death. 250,000 per year, according to a 2016 Hopkins study. Medical negligence.
Curmudgeon , says: June 19, 2019 at 1:42 am GMT1. Lack of rationality. Experiments have shown that people's intuitions are systematically biased.
2. Stubbornness. Like visual illusions, biases are persistent and hardly corrigible by education.
3. Substantial costs. Biases may incur substantial welfare-relevant costs such as lower wealth, health, or happiness.
4. Biases justify governmental paternalism. To protect people from theirbiases, governments should "nudge" the public toward better behavior.
Well the sad fact is that there's nobody in the position to protect "governments" from their own biases, and "scientists" from theirs.
So, behind the smoke of all words and rationalisations, the law is unchanged: everyone strives to gain and exert as much power as possible over as many others as possible. Most do that without writing papers to say it is right, others write papers, others books. Anyway, the fundamental law would stay as it is even if all this writing labour was spared, wouldn't it? But then another fundamental law, the law of framing all one's drives as moral and beneffective comes into play the papers and the books are useful, after all.
An interesting article. However, I think that the only thing we have to know about how illogical psychiatry is this:Paul2 , says: June 19, 2019 at 8:08 am GMTIn 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain it.
The APA then compromised, removing homosexuality from the DSM but replacing it, in effect, with "sexual orientation disturbance" for people "in conflict with" their sexual orientation. Not until 1987 did homosexuality completely fall out of the DSM.
The article makes no mention of the fact that no "new science" was brought to support the resolution.
It appears that the psychiatrists were voting based on feelings rather than science. Since that time, the now 50+ genders have been accepted as "normal" by the APA. My family has had members in multiple generations suffering from mental illness. None were "cured". I know others with the same circumstances.
How does one conclude that being repulsed by the prime directive of every living organism – reproduce yourself – is "normal"? That is not to say these people are horrible or evil, just not normal. How can someone, who thinks (s)he is a cat be mentally ill, but a grown man thinking he is a female child is not?
Long ago a lawyer acquaintance, referring to a specific judge, told me that the judge seemed to "make shit up as he was going along". I have long held psychiatry fits that statement very well.
Thank you for this article. I find the information about the interpretation of statistical data very interesting. My take on the background of the article is this:Dieter Kief , says: June 19, 2019 at 8:22 am GMTHere we have a real scientist fighting the nonsense spreading from (neoclassical) economics into other realms of science/academia.
Behavioral economics is a sideline by-product of neoclassical micro-economic theory. It tries to cope with experimental data that is inconsistent with that theory.
Everything in neoclassical economics is a travesty. "Rational choice theory" and its application in "micro economics" is false from the ground up. It basically assumes that people are gobbling up resources without plan, meaning or relevant circumstances. Neoclassical micro economic theory is so false and illogical that I would not know where to start in a comment, so I should like to refer to a whole book about it:
Keen, Steve: "Debunking economics".As the theory is totally wrong it is really not surprising that countless experiments show that people do not behave the way neoclassical theory predicts. How do economists react to this? Of course they assume that people are "irrational" because they do not behave according to their studied theory. (Why would you ever change your basic theory because of some tedious facts?)
We live in a strange world in which such people have control over university faculties, journals, famous prizes. But at least we have some scientists who defend their area of knowledge against the spreading nonsense produced by economists.
The title of the 1st ed. of Keen's book was "Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences" which was simply a perfect title.
@Curmudgeon Could it be that you expect psychiatrists in the past to be as rational as you are now?Would the result have been any different, if members of a 1973 convention of physicists or surgeons would have been asked?
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Jun 01, 2016 | www.globalresearch.ca
By Swiss Propaganda Research Global Research, May 14, 2019 Swiss Propaganda Research Region: Europe , USA Theme: Media Disinformation
This study was originally published in 2016.
Introduction: "Something strange"
"How does the newspaper know what it knows?" The answer to this question is likely to surprise some newspaper readers: "The main source of information is stories from news agencies. The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions." (Höhne 1977, p. 11)
A Swiss media researcher points out:
"The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected." (Blum 1995, p. 9)
In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies are hardly known to the public:
"A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all In fact, they play an enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little attention has been paid to them in the past." (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)
Even the head of a news agency noted:
"There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public. Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be found at the source of the story." (Segbers 2007, p. 9)
"The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System"
So what are the names of these agencies that are "always at the source of the story"? There are now only three global agencies left:
- The American Associated Press ( AP ) with over 4000 employees worldwide. The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world's population every day.
- The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse ( AFP ) based in Paris and with around 4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the world.
- The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000 people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters , headquartered in New York.
In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. However, when it comes to international news, these usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and translate their reports.
The three global news agencies Reuters, AFP and AP, and the three national agencies of the German-speaking countries of Austria (APA), Germany (DPA) and Switzerland (SDA).
Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of news agencies with these words:
"News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts of this system." (Segbers 2007, p.10)
Small abbreviation, great effect
However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: "Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines." (Blum 1995, P. 9) The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven't researched most of their contributions themselves.
The following figure shows some examples of source tagging in popular German-language newspapers. Next to the agency abbreviations we find the initials of editors who have edited the respective agency report.
News agencies as sources in newspaper articles
Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011 from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):
"Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a practice of 'spicing up' agency reports with little effort; for example, visualization techniques are used: unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and presented as comprehensive reports."
The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies critically:
"One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together with a few flourishes."
Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies. Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors said : "To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent agencies Reuters, AP and AFP."
In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually copied reports from New York, London and Paris.
Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013).
In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics, using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated with "controlled media" in authoritarian states.
The following graphic shows some examples from German and international publications. As you can see, despite the claimed objectivity, a slight (geo-)political bias sometimes creeps in.
"Putin threatens", "Iran provokes", "NATO concerned", "Assad stronghold": Similarities in content and wording due to reports by global news agencies.
The role of correspondents
Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters.
First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents). In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground permanently.
Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists "reported" from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.
How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the "news" is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book "People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East" :
"I'd imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important happened, they'd go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn't go off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an on-the-spot report. ()
The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the press releases, and I'd retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk you way through any crisis or summit meeting.
That's why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few different newspapers or click the news channels.
Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news agencies too slavishly. ()
The common idea about correspondents is that they 'have the story', () but the reality is that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of the conveyor belt, pretending we've baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we've done is put it in its wrapping. ()
Afterwards, a friend asked me how I'd managed to answer all the questions during those cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news, you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My friend had relalized that, for decades, what he'd been watching and listening to on the news was pure theatre." (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)
In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research, but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news agencies – the notorious "mainstream effect".
In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.
"What the agency does not report, does not take place"
The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this "Observatory", as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.
Rather, the "Observatory" delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn "informed" hundreds of millions of readers and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange "Observatory" in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that was rarely asked.
The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in his book "The Business of News":
"A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is cited. () Behind the protective shield such a 'source' means for a news story, some people are quite inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always be attributed to the cited source." (Steffens 1969, p. 106)
Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens:
"News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is strictly required." (Steffens 1969, p. 32)
Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too "unimportant" – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: "What the agency does not report, does not take place." (Wilke 2000, p. 1)
America's "Righteous" Russia-gate Censorship. "Russia Bashing All the Time""Adding questionable stories"
While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent – even though they shouldn't actually be: "Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh active-researching ones." (Blum 1995, p. 16)
In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens warned of this danger:
"The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is. Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and becomes ever more credible." (Steffens 1969, p. 234)
Among the most active actors in "injecting" questionable geopolitical news are the military and defense ministries. For example, in 2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom Curley, made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would "ruin" the AP and him if the journalists reported too critically on the US military.
Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious stories sourced to some unnamed "informants" from "US defense circles".
Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media:
"With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread scenarios and deceptions. In this new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the secret services have become combatants in the information war. () The US military specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers. The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military." (Tilgner 2003, p. 132)
What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:
Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the Angolan war,
"The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression in Angola. So any kind of story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action, were propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another story, and it was kept going for weeks. () [But] it was all fiction."
Fred Bridgland looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: "We based our reports on official communications. It was not until years later that I learned a little CIA disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué, and it bore no relation at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room."
And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the Contra War in Nicaragua with these words:
"They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press came straight out of the toilet." (Hird 1985)
Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media, which can be "leaked" information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so efficient.
Through this "propaganda multiplier", dubious stories from PR experts working for governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with terms such as "apparent", "alleged" and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its effect taken place.
The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.
As the New York Times reported
In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in Great Britain and the US.
For example, news outlets like the New York Times or BBC have up to 100 foreign correspondents and other external employees. However, Middle East correspondent Luyendijk points out:
"Dutch news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like CNN, the BBC, and the New York Times . We did that on the assumption that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on assistants and translators." (Luyendijk p. 47)
In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify ("military circles", "anonymous government officials", "intelligence officials" and the like) and can therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the geopolitical coverage in our media.
The following figure shows some examples of such citation based on the Syria coverage of the largest daily newspaper in Switzerland, Tages-Anzeiger. The articles are all from the first days of October 2015, when Russia for the first time intervened directly in the Syrian war (US/UK sources are highlighted):
Frequent citation of British and US media, exemplified by the Syria war coverage of Swiss daily newspaper Tages-Anzeiger in October 2015.
The desired narrative
But why do journalists in our media not simply try to research and report independently of the global agencies and the Anglo-Saxon media? Middle East correspondent Luyendijk describes his experiences:
"You might suggest that I should have looked for sources I could trust. I did try, but whenever I wanted to write a story without using news agencies, the main Anglo-Saxon media, or talking heads, it fell apart. () Obviously I, as a correspondent, could tell very different stories about one and the same situation. But the media could only present one of them, and often enough, that was exactly the story that confirmed the prevailing image." (Luyendijk p.54ff)
Media researcher Noam Chomsky has described this effect in his essay "What makes the mainstream media mainstream" as follows: "If you leave the official line, if you produce dissenting reports, then you will soon feel this. () There are many ways to get you back in line quickly. If you don't follow the guidelines, you will not keep your job long. This system works pretty well, and it reflects established power structures." (Chomsky 1997)
Nevertheless, some of the leading journalists continue to believe that nobody can tell them what to write. How does this add up? Media researcher Chomsky clarifies the apparent contradiction:
"[T]he point is that they wouldn't be there unless they had already demonstrated that nobody has to tell them what to write because they are going say the right thing. If they had started off at the Metro desk, or something, and had pursued the wrong kind of stories, they never would have made it to the positions where they can now say anything they like. () They have been through the socialization system." (Chomsky 1997)
Ultimately, this "socialization process" leads to a journalism that generally no longer independently researches and critically reports on geopolitical conflicts (and some other topics), but seeks to consolidate the desired narrative through appropriate editorials, commentary, and interviewees.
Conclusion: The "First Law of Journalism"
Former AP journalist Herbert Altschull called it the First Law of Journalism:
"In all press systems, the news media are instruments of those who exercise political and economic power. Newspapers, periodicals, radio and television stations do not act independently, although they have the possibility of independent exercise of power." (Altschull 1984/1995, p. 298)
In that sense, it is logical that our traditional media – which are predominantly financed by advertising or the state – represent the geopolitical interests of the transatlantic alliance, given that both the advertising corporations as well as the states themselves are dependent on the US dominated transatlantic economic and security architecture.
In addition, our leading media and their key people are – in the spirit of Chomsky's "socialization" – often themselves part of the networks of the transatlantic elite. Some of the most important institutions in this regard include the US Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Bilderberg Group, and the Trilateral Commission (see in-depth study of these networks ).
Indeed, most well-known publications basically may be seen as "establishment media". This is because, in the past, the freedom of the press was rather theoretical, given significant entry barriers such as broadcasting licenses, frequency slots, requirements for financing and technical infrastructure, limited sales channels, dependence on advertising, and other restrictions.
It was only due to the Internet that Altschull's First Law has been broken to some extent. Thus, in recent years a high-quality, reader-funded journalism has emerged, often outperforming traditional media in terms of critical reporting. Some of these "alternative" publications already reach a very large audience, showing that the „mass" does not have to be a problem for the quality of a media outlet.
Nevertheless, up to now the traditional media has been able to attract a solid majority of online visitors, too. This, in turn, is closely linked to the hidden role of news agencies, whose up-to-the-minute reports form the backbone of most news portals.
Will "political and economic power", according to Altschull's Law, retain control over the news, or will "uncontrolled" news change the political and economic power structure? The coming years will show.
Case study: Syria war coverage
As part of a case study, the Syria war coverage of nine leading daily newspapers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland were examined for plurality of viewpoints and reliance on news agencies. The following newspapers were selected:
- For Germany: Die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
- For Switzerland: Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), Tagesanzeiger (TA), and Basler Zeitung (BaZ)
- For Austria: Standard, Kurier, and Die Presse
The investigation period was defined as October 1 to 15, 2015, i.e. the first two weeks after Russia's direct intervention in the Syrian conflict. The entire print and online coverage of these newspapers was taken into account. Any Sunday editions were not taken into account, as not all of the newspapers examined have such. In total, 381 newspaper articles met the stated criteria.
In a first step, the articles were classified according to their properties into the following groups:
- Agencies : Reports from news agencies (with agency code)
- Mixed : Simple reports (with author names) that are based in whole or in part on agency reports
- Reports : Editorial background reports and analyzes
- Opinions/Comments : Opinions and guest comments
- Interviews : interviews with experts, politicians etc.
- Investigative : Investigative research that reveals new information or context
The following Figure 1 shows the composition of the articles for the nine newspapers analyzed in total. As can be seen, 55% of articles were news agency reports; 23% editorial reports based on agency material; 9% background reports; 10% opinions and guest comments; 2% interviews; and 0% based on investigative research.
Figure 1: Types of articles (total; n=381)
The pure agency texts – from short notices to the detailed reports – were mostly on the Internet pages of the daily newspapers: on the one hand, the pressure for breaking news is higher than in the printed edition, on the other hand, there are no space restrictions. Most other types of articles were found in both the online and printed editions; some exclusive interviews and background reports were found only in the printed editions. All items were collected only once for the investigation.
The following Figure 2 shows the same classification on a per newspaper basis. During the observation period (two weeks), most newspapers published between 40 and 50 articles on the Syrian conflict (print and online). In the German newspaper Die Welt there were more (58), in the Basler Zeitung and the Austrian Kurier , however, significantly less (29 or 33).
Depending on which newspaper, the share of agency reports is almost 50% (Welt, Süddeutsche, NZZ, Basler Zeitung), just under 60% (FAZ, Tagesanzeiger), and 60 to 70% (Presse, Standard, Kurier). Together with the agency-based reports, the proportion in most newspapers is between approx. 70% and 80%. These proportions are consistent with previous media studies (e.g., Blum 1995, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013, Paterson 2007).
In the background reports, the Swiss newspapers were leading (five to six pieces), followed by Welt , Süddeutsche and Standard (four each) and the other newspapers (one to three). The background reports and analyzes were in particular devoted to the situation and development in the Middle East, as well as to the motives and interests of individual actors (for example Russia, Turkey, the Islamic State).
However, most of the commentaries were to be found in the German newspapers (seven comments each), followed by Standard (five), NZZ and Tagesanzeiger (four each). Basler Zeitung did not publish any commentaries during the observation period, but two interviews. Other interviews were conducted by Standard (three) and Kurier and Presse (one each). Investigative research, however, could not be found in any of the newspapers.
In particular, in the case of the three German newspapers, a journalistically problematic blending of opinion pieces and reports was noted. Reports contained strong expressions of opinion even though they were not marked as commentary. The present study was in any case based on the article labeling by the newspaper.
Figure 2: Types of articles per newspaper
The following Figure 3 shows the breakdown of agency stories (by agency abbreviation) for each news agency, in total and per country. The 211 agency reports carried a total of 277 agency codes (a story may consist of material from more than one agency). In total, 24% of agency reports came from the AFP; about 20% each by the DPA, APA and Reuters; 9% of the SDA; 6% of the AP; and 11% were unknown (no labeling or blanket term "agencies").
In Germany, the DPA, AFP and Reuters each have a share of about one third of the news stories. In Switzerland, the SDA and the AFP are in the lead, and in Austria, the APA and Reuters.
In fact, the shares of the global agencies AFP, AP and Reuters are likely to be even higher, as the Swiss SDA and the Austrian APA obtain their international reports mainly from the global agencies and the German DPA cooperates closely with the American AP.
It should also be noted that, for historical reasons, the global agencies are represented differently in different regions of the world. For events in Asia, Ukraine or Africa, the share of each agency will therefore be different than from events in the Middle East.
Figure 3: Share of news agencies, total (n=277) and per country
In the next step, central statements were used to rate the orientation of editorial opinions (28), guest comments (10) and interview partners (7) (a total of 45 articles). As Figure 4 shows, 82% of the contributions were generally US/NATO friendly, 16% neutral or balanced, and 2% predominantly US/NATO critical.
The only predominantly US/NATO-critical contribution was an op-ed in the Austrian Standard on October 2, 2015, titled: "The strategy of regime change has failed. A distinction between ‚good' and ‚bad' terrorist groups in Syria makes the Western policy untrustworthy."
Figure 4: Orientation of editorial opinions, guest comments, and interviewees (total; n=45).
The following Figure 5 shows the orientation of the contributions, guest comments and interviewees, in turn broken down by individual newspapers. As can be seen, Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, NZZ, Zürcher Tagesanzeiger and the Austrian newspaper Kurier presented exclusively US/NATO-friendly opinion and guest contributions; this goes for FAZ too, with the exception of one neutral/balanced contribution. The Standard brought four US/NATO friendly, three balanced/neutral, as well as the already mentioned US/NATO critical opinion contributions.
Presse was the only one of the examined newspapers to predominantly publish neutral/balanced opinions and guest contributions. The Basler Zeitung published one US/NATO-friendly and one balanced contribution. Shortly after the observation period (October 16, 2015), Basler Zeitung also published an interview with the President of the Russian Parliament. This would of course have been counted as a contribution critical of the US/NATO.
Figure 5: Basic orientation of opinion pieces and interviewees per newspaper
In a further analysis, a full-text keyword search for "propaganda" (and word combinations thereof) was used to investigate in which cases the newspapers themselves identified propaganda in one of the two geopolitical conflict sides, USA/NATO or Russia (the participant "IS/ISIS" was not considered). In total, twenty such cases were identified. Figure 6 shows the result: in 85% of the cases, propaganda was identified on the Russian side of the conflict, in 15% the identification was neutral or unstated, and in 0% of the cases propaganda was identified on the USA/NATO side of the conflict.
It should be noted that about half of the cases (nine) were in the Swiss NZZ , which spoke of Russian propaganda quite frequently ("Kremlin propaganda", "Moscow propaganda machine", "propaganda stories", "Russian propaganda apparatus" etc.), followed by German FAZ (three), Welt and Süddeutsche Zeitung (two each) and the Austrian newspaper Kurier (one). The other newspapers did not mention propaganda, or only in a neutral context (or in the context of IS).
Figure 6: Attribution of propaganda to conflict parties (total; n=20).
Conclusion
In this case study, the geopolitical coverage in nine leading daily newspapers from Germany, Austria and Switzerland was examined for diversity and journalistic performance using the example of the Syrian war.
The results confirm the high dependence on the global news agencies (63 to 90%, excluding commentaries and interviews) and the lack of own investigative research, as well as the rather biased commenting on events in favor of the US/NATO side (82% positive; 2% negative), whose stories were not checked by the newspapers for any propaganda.
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May 05, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Leaked: USA's Feb 2018 Plan For A Coup In Venezuela
by Tyler Durden Sun, 05/05/2019 - 11:20 2 SHARES Authored by Eric Zuesse via Off-Guardian.org,
A detailed plan from "UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND" dated "23 FEBRUARY 2018" was issued with the title "PLAN TO OVERTHROW THE VENEZUELAN DICTATORSHIP 'MASTERSTROKE'" and is here presented complete.
This document was personally signed by Admiral Kurt W. Tidd , who was the Commander (the chief), at SOUTHCOM , and he was thus the top U.S. military official handling Venezuela. But this was far more than just a military plan.
It was comprehensive -- directing military, diplomatic, and propaganda, policies -- regarding the Trump Administration's planned "Overthrow" of Venezuela's Government. His plan has since guided the Administration's entire operation, including "the capacities of the psychological war," regarding Venezuela.
It instructed SOUTHCOM:
Encouraging popular dissatisfaction by increasing scarcity and rise in price of the foodstuffs, medicines and other essential goods for the inhabitants. Making more harrowing and painful the scarcities of the main basic merchandises." ...
intensifying the undercapitalization of the country, the leaking out of foreign currency and the deterioration of its monetary base, bringing about the application of new inflationary measures." ...
Fully obstruct imports, and at the same time discouraging potential foreign investors in order to make the situation more critical for the population." ... compelling him to fall into mistakes that generate greater distrust and rejection domestically" ...
To besiege him, to ridicule him and to pose him as symbol of awkwardness and incompetence. To expose him as a puppet of Cuba." ...
Appealing to domestic allies as well as other people inserted from abroad in the national scenario in order to generate protests, riots and insecurity, plunders, thefts, assaults and highjacking of vessels as well as other means of transportation, with the intention of deserting this country in crisis through all borderlands and other possible ways, jeopardizing in such a way the National Security of neighboring frontier nations. Causing victims and holding the Government responsible for them. Magnifying, in front of the world, the humanitarian crisis in which the country has been submitted to."
Structuring a plan to get the profuse desertion of the most qualified professionals from the country, in order 'to leave it with no professionals at all', which will aggravate even more the internal situation and along these lines putting the blame on of Government."
the presence of combat units from the United States of America and the other named countries, under the command of a Joint General Staff led by the USA."
It was posted online at the Voltairenet site , and was first copied to a web archive on 14 May 2018 . So, it has been online since at least that date. However, because the photo in it of the document wasn't made available via software which includes the individual symbols, but presented only the full visual image of the paper document, it still hasn't yet gone viral on the Web.
Here, therefore, is the first appearance, on the Web, of the full document, that's manually copied, character-by-character, so that each phrase in this document becomes, for the first time, web-searchable, and thereby conveniently available for journalists and historians to quote from.
This prophetic document -- the source for what has happened afterward in and to Venezuela -- might therefore finally receive the public attention that it so clearly merits.
The document starts with propaganda against Venezuela's existing Government (and it totally ignores the extent to which the pre-existing U.S. economic sanctions against Venezuela had actually caused these problems ), and it then proceeds to present the U.S. plan to overthrow the 'dictatorship'. (Tidd refers to Maduro only as "the Dictator," except at the very start and very end.
At the end, he commands "the denouncement toward Maduro's regimen" and he also uses the phrase "the enemy" to refer to him -- as if there had been the U.S. Constitutionally required authorization, by the U.S. Congress, of this "war." The close urges "the dispatch of a UNO military force for the imposition of peace, once Nicolas Maduro's corrupt dictatorship is defeated." The U.N. is militarily to "impose" "peace," after the U.S. and its allies have conquered Venezuela.)
Although Tidd placed 100% of the blame for Venezuela's problems upon Maduro, and ignored the crucial extent to which U.S. economic sanctions had caused them, his plan emphasized that the U.S. must actively make things even worse for the Venezuelan public than America's economic sanctions had yet done.
His coup-plan is loaded with such statements, and, in fact, opens with one:
"Encouraging popular dissatisfaction by increasing scarcity and rise in price of the foodstuffs, medicines and other essential goods for the inhabitants. Making more harrowing and painful the scarcities of the main basic merchandises."
So: he wasn't naive. America's induced suffering upon Venezuelans was part of his plan for Venezuelans, in order to get them to do what the U.S. regime wants them to do -- overthrow Maduro. Furthermore, the United States Government has had extensive successes in previous such operations. One example is that this was how Chile's Salvador Allende was brought down in 1973 (at a time when the U.S. Government's claims to have done it for 'national security' reasons had much more credibility than its current excuse of helping the Venezuelan people does, because the supposedly ideological Cold War was still on).
The only excuse that the perpetrators can come up with, this time around, is "to put an end to the Venezuelan nightmare and the awakening of theirs beloved nation at a luminous dawn, in which the vision of fortune, true peace and tranquility predominate for their fellow citizens."
Impoverish the nation, in order to help Venezuelans attain "true peace and tranquility." That's the plan.
Here is the document's entire text:
SOUTHCOM
TOP SECRET
23 FEB 2018PLAN TO OVERTHROW THE VENEZUELAN DICTATORSHIP "MASTERSTROKE"UNITED STATES SOUTHERN COMMAND 23 FEBRUARY 2018
TOP SECRET/20180223
CURRENT SITUATION
The Venezuelan Chavista dictatorship staggers as a result of its frequent internal problems; there is a great shortage of foodstuffs, an exhaustion of the sources of foreign currency and a rampant corruption. The international support, won with petrodollars, becomes scarcer each time and the purchasing power of its national currency is in a constant downfall.
Such scenario is not supposed to change, but the Venezuelan present-day leaders, as they usually do, in their despair to preserve their power, are capable to appeal to new populist measures that perpetuate their positions of privilege; the only mechanism that sustains them obstinate to the struggle to hold on their positions.
Maduro's corrupt regimen will collapse but regrettably, the divided opposing forces, legitimate defenders of democracy and the well-being of their people, do not have power enough to put an end to the Venezuelan nightmare and the awakening of theirs beloved nation at a luminous dawn, in which the vision of fortune, true peace and tranquility predominate for their fellow citizens.
The internal disputes, the supreme particular likings, the corruption similar to the one of their rivals, as well as the scarcity of rooting, do not grant them the opportunity to make the most of this situation and to give the necessary step to overturn the state of penury and precariousness in which the pressure group, that exercises the leftist dictatorship, has submerged the country. We are at the presence of an unprecedented criminal action in Latin America.
This affects the entire region, there is no respect to international right and local political alternatives are unacceptable.
Democracy spreads out in America, continent in which radical populism was intended to take over. Argentina, Ecuador and Brazil are examples of it. The rebirth of democracy has the support of the most valuable determinations, and the conditions in the regions run in its favour.
It is the time for the United States to prove, with concrete actions, that they are implicated in that process, where overthrowing Venezuelan dictatorship will surely mean a continental turning point.
It is the first opportunity of the Trump Administration to bring forward the vision in reference to security and democracy. Showing its active commitment is crucial, not only for the administration, but also for the continent and for the world.
The time has come to
Step to speed up the definite overthrow of Chavismo and the expulsion of its representative:
Undermining the decadent popular support to Government.Securing he the present-day dictator's irreversible deterioration
- Encouraging popular dissatisfaction by increasing scarcity and rise in price of the foodstuffs, medicines and other essential goods for the inhabitants. Making more harrowing and painful the scarcities of the main basic merchandises.
Increasing the internal instability to a critical level.
- Developing actions to encourage the egocentrism and the verbal incontinence of the Dictator, compelling him to fall into mistakes that generate greater distrust and rejection domestically, while continuing to minimize the international significance of his public figure.
- To beseige him, to ridicule him and to pose him as symbol of awkwardness and incompetence. To expose him as a puppet of Cuba. Exacerbating the division among members of the governing group. Revealing the differences in his living conditions with respect to those of his followers, at the same time to incite them to keep on increasing those divergences. Highlighting examples as the ones of Rafael Ramirez from PDVSA and Nelson Mercengtes from gthe BCV.
- Making his government unsustainable, forcing him to claudication, to negotiate or to run away, as other close collaborators have done.
- Making provisions for a back or escaping door, in case he finally chooses to look for a safe port out of his country.
Using the army officers as an alternative of definite solution.
- Intensifying the undercapitalizatioin of the country, the leaking out of foreign currency and the deterioration of its monetary base, bringing about the application of new inflationary measures that increase its deterioration and that simultaneously provoke the citizens with less access -- who support the present-day rulers -- and those who are best positioned, to see their social status threatened or affected. Establishing that the use of bitcoin, Petro, is a key element in the deterioration of the economy, which is an unconstitutional and illegal manipulation of the national currency, useable for money laundering.
- Fully obstructing imports, and at the same time, discouraging potential foreign investors in order to contribute to make more critical the situation of the population -- mainly in the sphere of oil, essential for any attempt of recuperation of the national economy.
- Appealing to domestic allies as well as other people inserted from abroad in the national scenario in order to generate protests, riots and insecurity, plunders, thefts, assaults and highjacking of vessels as well as other means of transportation, with the intention of deserting this country in crisis through all borderlands and other possible ways, jeopardizing in such a way the National Security of neighboring frontier nations. Causing victims and holding the Government responsible for them. Magnifying, in front of the world, the humanitarian crisis in which the country has been submitted to.
- Making use of the generalized corruption and the originating profits from their operations with prohibited drugs, to do away with their image in front of the world and their domestic followers.
- Promoting fatigue inside the members of the PSUV, inciting the annoyance and nonconformity among themselves, for them to break noisily away from the line of the Government; for them to refuse the measures and restrictions which also affect them, inciting the rising of internal politic factions, which divides it in its schism, making it as weak as the the opposition is. Creating frictions between the PSUV and "Somos Venezuela".
- Structuring a plan to get the profuse desertion of the most qualified professionals from the country, in order "to leave it with no professionals at all", which will aggravate even more the internal situation and along these lines putting the blame on of Government.
Information Strategie
- Continuing hardening the conditions inside the Armed Forces to carry out a coup d'etat before concluding 2018, if the crisis does not make the dictatorship to collapse or the dictator does not decide to move aside.
- Continuing setting fire to the common frontier with Colombia. Multiplying the traffic of fuel and other goods. The movement of paramilitaries, armed raids and drug trafficking. Provoking armed incidents with the Venezuelan frontier security forces.
- Recruiting paramilitaries mainly in the campsites of refugees in Cucuta, La Guajira and the north of Santander, areas largely populated by Colombian citizens who emigrated to Venezuela and now return, run away from the regimen to intensify the destabilizing activities in the common frontier between both countries. Making use of the empty space left by the FARC, the belligerency of the ELN and the activities in the area of the Gulf Clan.
- Preparing the involvement of allied forces in support of the Venezuelan army officers or to control the internal crisis, in the event they delay too much in taking the initiative.
- Establishing a speedy time line that prevents the Dictator to continue winning control on the internal scenario. If it's necessary, act before the elections stipulated for next April.
- Getting the support of the allied authorities of friendly countries (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Panama and Guyana).
- Organizing the provisioning, relief of troops, medical and logistic support from Panama. Making good use of the facilities of electronic surveillance and signals intelligence, the hospitals and its deployed endowments in Danen, the equipped airdromes for the Colombian Plan, as well as the landing fields of the old-time military bases of Howard and Albrook, as well as the one belonging to "Rio Halo". In addition, the Humanitarian Regional Center of the United Nations, designed for situations of catastrophes and humanitarian emergency, which has an aerial landing field and its own warehouses.
- Moving on the basification of combat airplanes and choppers, armored conveyances, intelligence positions, and special military and logistics units (police and military district attorneys and prisons).
- Developing the military operation under international flag, patronized by the Conference of American Armies, under the protection of the OAS and the supervision, in the legal and media context, of the Secretary General Luis Almagro. Declaring the necessity that the continental commandment be strengthened to act, using the instrument of the Inter-American Democratic Charter, in order to avoid the democratic rupture.
- Binding Brazil, Argentina, Colombia and Panama to the contribution of greater number of troops, to make use of their geographic proximity and experience in operations in forest regions. Strengthening their international condition with the presence of combat units from the United States of America and the other named countries, under the command of a Joint General Staff led by the USA.
- Using the facilities at Panamanian territory for the rear guard and the capacities of Argentina for the securing of the ports and the maritime positions.
- Leaning on Brazil and Guyana to make use of the migratory situation that we intend to encourage in the border with Guyana.
- Coordinating the support to Colombia, Brazil, Guyana, Aruba, Curacao, Trinidad and Tabago and other States in front of the flow of Venezuelan immigrants in the event of the crisis. Promoting international participation in this effort, as part of the multilateral operation with contribution of the States, Non-Profit Organizations and international bodies. Supplying the adequate logistic, intelligence, surveillance and control support.
- Anticipating, specially, the most vulnerable points in Arauca, Puerto Carreno and Ininda, Maicao, Barranquilla and Sincelejo, in Colombia, and Roramia, Manaos and Boa Vista, in Brazil.
- Silencing the symbolic presence of Chavez-representative of unit and popular support-, and in the other way around, keeping the harassment to the Dictator as the only responsible of the crisis in which he has submerged the nation.
- Holding the Dictator and his closer followers responsible, in the first place, for the prevailing crisis due to his inability to find the way out that the Venezuelans are in need of.
- Intensifying the media denouncement about the cubanization of Venezuela.
- Outstandingly intensifying the denouncement toward Maduro's regimen, considering him:
- A criminal
- A illegitimate
- A thief of the wealth of the Venezuelan people
- Someone who plunders the national treasury to carry out his evasion
- Highlighting the incompetence of the mechanisms of integration created by the regimens of Cuba and Venezuela, specially the ALBA and PETROCARIBE, in order to tackle the situation of the country and their inability to find solutions to the problems that the citizens are facing.
- Increasing, inside the country and through the mass media established abroad, the dissemination of designed messages based on testimonies and publications originated in the country, making use of all the possible capacities, including the social networks.
- Claiming, through that mass media, the need to put an end to this situation because of its unsustainable essence.
- Justifying and assuring through violent means the international backup to the deposal of the dictatorship, displaying an extensive dissemination, inside the country and to the entire world, through all the open means and the capacities of the psychological war of the US ARMY.
- Assuring that the disclosed images and reports of the military actions are approved by the General Staff to prevent their manipulation and use by the enemy.
- The United States should entirely back up the OAS, strengthening the image of the OAS and other multilateral institutions for the inter-American system, as instruments for the solution to the regional problems.
- Promoting the request of the the dispatch of a UNO military force for the imposition of peace, once Nicolas Maduro's corrupt dictatorship is defeated.
[signature]
K.W. TIDD
Admiral, USN
COMMANDER
WorkingClassMan , 9 minutes ago link
frankthecrank , 17 minutes ago linkThe US military learned their international terrorism activities from the best, the Mossad. This country is run (since at least Lincoln) by terrorists. Money stolen from us every year in the form of taxes used for ******** that destabilizes nations, destroys heritage and expands greater isn'treal.
All this and **** none of us even heard of yet...while our own borders remain wide open and our infrastructure crumbles.
Good use of money you ******* scum.
fezline , 13 minutes ago linkIt's fake. The military doesn't engage in such things, the spooks at the CIA do-along with the NSA. Just looking at that pic is humorous -- as if that's what they would title the document.
Gullible people.
PeterLong , 9 minutes ago linkWho is Gulible now??
https://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/jfk/northwoods.pdf
Joiningupthedots , 8 minutes ago linkgdpetti , 26 minutes ago linkThe golden rule of finding yourself in a hole.......
STOP DIGGING!
mailll , 30 minutes ago linkBLah, blah, blah... in other words, the usual.... same as always... CIA's Crowley complained about these idiots after he retired... one example is the difference in Bush 1 and Bush Jr....
This plan is just the usual regime change script written about in many books... the only difference is how 'western' it is in targeting the mind of the masses... which only happens in 'democracies'.... real ones make you do that....
Wait till the puppets in DC really get frustrated... .and then see how frustrated their puppet masters get when their plans go awry as well... time is running out for both puppet and its master... Imagine being Putin and having to deal with these freaks.
I have a conspiracy theory. Since one of my theories is this: We want to gain control of Venezuela oil in order to secure oil imports coming into the US for when we attack Iran for the sake of Israel. The 22% of imports we get from the middle east, much of which comes from the Persian Gulf region, will be disrupted due to this war. And we would have a shortage here in the US along with skyrocketing oil prices. And we would surely bitch about it. But Venezuela oil will keep the oil coming into the US uninterrupted. And for those of you who believe we are energy independent, we are not. We use about 19 million barrels of oil per day, we produce about 12 million barrels per day, and we import about 6-7 million barrels of oil per day to help feed our craving for oil.
But to add to this conspiracy theory, I believe the window of opportunity is closing and the Zionists have to act quickly. So they will just say, OK, lets take Venezuela with our military and see how the world responds. We will never know until we try, so let's do it. And if it was a bad idea, don't worry boys, we are untouchable. We got away with it in Iraq, so let's do it again. Venezuela today, Iran tomorrow, and Israel always. They pay very well.
But this is just a conspiracy theory of mine, perhaps even a foolish one.
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Apr 05, 2019 | dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
RT America on Apr 3, 2019
Chris Hedges, host of "On Contact," joins Rick Sanchez to discuss the role of the Democratic establishment in the "Russiagate" media frenzy. He argues that it was an unsustainable narrative given the actions of the White House but that the Democratic elite are unable to face their own role in the economic and social crises for which they are in large part to blame. They also discuss NATO's expansionary tendencies and how profitable it is for US defense contractors.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/VkoH3l7c5cI
From the archives:
- Chris Hedges Responds to Rachel Maddow's Latest Conspiratorial Spasm
- Christian Sorensen: War Industry Muster–The Corporate Underpinnings of the Special Relationship
- Russiagate: A Trump-Boosting Triumph of Diversion and Inauthentic Opposition? by Paul Street + Democrats' Russophobia Hid Trump's Real Crimes
- Christian Sorensen: War Industry Muster–War Is A Racket
- David Swanson: The Dirty Truth About NATO
- Will Griffin: Militarism is Capitalism
- The Russian Peace Threat by David Swanson + The REAL Reason The U.S. Wants Regime Change in Venezuela + Chris Hedges Slams NBC
- Top 10 Reasons NOT to Love NATO by David Swanson
Barbara Mullin | April 7, 2019 at 10:29 AM
Years ago I kept hearing from the newsmedia that Russia was the "enemy".
Frontline had a show about "Putin's Brain". Even Free Speech TV shows like Bill Press and "The Nation" authors like Eric Alterman push the Hillary style warmongering and do nothing to expose the outright lies out there.
These are supposed to be thought outside of the corporate mainstream newsmedia. The emphasis only on Trump and Fox News is totally hypocritical.
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Mar 07, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
ex-SA , Mar 5, 2019 3:55:53 PM | 13
Desolation Row , Mar 5, 2019 6:41:25 PM | linkThank you! This may well be the most important link I've encountered in my years of lurking here @ MoA and elsewhere.
There is a video linked in the article which may be more important than the article itself. Easily overlooked, so here: https://swprs.org/video-the-cia-and-the-media/
It appears in the article here:
"In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:"
Many thanks, and much respect to you Sir for bringing this important piece to my attention.
May I humbly offer in return, https://archive.org/details/publicenemyno1 (don't neglect the 2nd reel)
I apologize for another somewhat off topic posting, but I have not seen it posted here earlier, and I think that this should be seen by as many eyes as possible.The Propaganda Multiplier:How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics
By Swiss Propaganda Research
It is one of the most important aspects of our media system -- and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.
The key role played by these agencies means that Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.
A study of the Syria war coverage by nine leading European newspapers clearly illustrates these issues: 78% of all articles are based in whole or in part on agency reports, yet 0% on investigative research. Moreover, 82% of all opinion pieces and interviews are in favor of the US and NATO intervention, while propaganda is attributed exclusively to the opposite side...
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Oct 10, 2014 | The Guardian
BradBenson, 10 October 2014 6:14pmThe American Public has gotten exactly what it deserved. They have been dumbed-down in our poor-by-intention school systems. The moronic nonsense that passes for news in this country gets more sensational with each passing day. Over on Fox, they are making the claim that ISIS fighters are bringing Ebola over the Mexican Border, which prompted a reply by the Mexican Embassy that won't be reported on Fox.BaronVonAmericano , 10 October 2014 6:26pmWe continue to hear and it was even reported in this very fine article by Ms. Benjamin that the American People now support this new war. Really? I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that support anywhere but on the news and I just don't believe it any more.
There is also the little problem of infiltration into key media slots by paid CIA Assets (Scarborough and brainless Mika are two of these double dippers). Others are intermarried. Right-wing Neocon War Criminal Dan Senor is married to "respected" newsperson Campbell Brown who is now involved in privatizing our school system. Victoria Nuland, the slimey State Department Official who was overheard appointing the members of the future Ukrainian Government prior to the Maidan Coup is married to another Neo-Con--Larry Kagan. Even sweet little Andrea Mitchell is actually Mrs. Alan Greenspan.
General Electric, the world's largest military contractor, still controls the message over at the so-called "liberal" MSNBC. MSNBC's other owner is Comcast, the right wing media conglomerate that controls the radio waves in every major American Market. Over at CNN, Mossad Asset Wolf Blitzer, who rose from being an obscure little correspondent for an Israeli Newspaper to being CNN's Chief "Pentagon Correspondent" and then was elevated to supreme anchorman nearly as quickly, ensures that the pro-Israeli Message is always in the forefront, even as the Israeli's commit one murderous act after another upon helpless Palestinian Women and Children.
Every single "terrorism expert", General or former Government Official that is brought out to discuss the next great war is connected to a military contractor that stands to benefit from that war. Not surprisingly, the military option is the only option discussed and we are assured that, if only we do this or bomb that, then it will all be over and we can bring our kids home to a big victory parade. I'm 63 and it has never happened in my lifetime--with the exception of the phony parade that Bush Senior put on after his murderous little "First Gulf War".
Yesterday there was a coordinated action by all of the networks, which was clearly designed to support the idea that the generals want Obama to act and he just won't. The not-so-subtle message was that the generals were right and that the President's "inaction" was somehow out of line-since, after all, the generals have recommended more war. It was as if these people don't remember that the President, sleazy War Criminal that he is, is still the Commander in Chief.
The Generals in the Pentagon always want war. It is how they make rank. All of those young kids that just graduated from our various academies know that war experience is the only thing that will get them the advancement that they seek in the career that they have chosen. They are champing at the bit for more war.
Finally, this Sunday every NFL Game will begin with some Patriotic "Honor America" Display, which will include a missing man flyover, flags and fireworks, plenty of uniforms, wounded Vets and soon-to-be-wounded Vets. A giant American Flag will, once again, cover the fields and hundreds of stupid young kids will rush down to their "Military Career Center" right after the game. These are the ones that I pity most.
Let's be frank: powerful interests want war and subsequent puppet regimes in the half dozen nations that the neo-cons have been eyeing (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan). These interests surely include industries like banking, arms and oil-all of whom make a killing on any war, and would stand to do well with friendly governments who could finance more arms purchases and will never nationalize the oil.So, the same PR campaign that started with Bush and Cheney continues-the exact same campaign. Obviously, they have to come back at the apple with variations, but any notion that the "media will get it someday" is willfully ignorant of the obvious fact that there is an agenda, and that agenda just won't stop until it's achieved-or revolution supplants the influence of these dark forces.
IanB52, 10 October 2014 6:57pm
The US media are indeed working overtime to get this war happening. When I'm down at the gym they always have CNN on (I can only imagine what FOX is like) which is a pretty much dyed in the wool yellow jingoist station at this point. With all the segments they dedicate to ISIS, a new war, the "imminent" terrorist threat, they seem to favor talking heads who support a full ground war and I have never, not once, heard anyone even speak about the mere possibility of peace. Not ever.
In media universe there is no alternative to endless war and an endless stream of hyped reasons for new killing.
I'd imagine that these media companies have a lot stock in and a cozy relationship with the defense contractors.
Damiano Iocovozzi, 10 October 2014 7:04pm
ID5868758 , 10 October 2014 10:20pmThe media machine is a wholly owned subsidiary of the United States of Corporations. The media doesn't report on anything but relies on repeating manufactured crises, creating manufactured consent & discussing manufactured solutions. Follow the oil, the pipelines & the money. Both R's & D's are left & right cheeks of the same buttock. Thanks to Citizens United & even Hobby Lobby, a compliant Supreme Court, also owned by United States of Corporations, it's a done deal.
Oh, the greatest propaganda arm the US government has right now, bar none, is the American media. It's disgraceful. we no longer have journalists speaking truth to power in my country, we have people practicing stenography, straight from the State Department to your favorite media outlet.Let me give you one clear example. A year ago Barack Obama came very close to bombing Syria to kingdom come, the justification used was "Assad gassed his own people", referring to a sarin gas attack near Damascus. Well, it turns out that Assad did not initiate that attack, discovered by research from many sources including the prestigious MIT, it was a false flag attack planned by Turkey and carried out by some of Obama's own "moderate rebels".
But all that research from MIT, from the UN, and others, has been buried by the American media, and every single story on Syria and Assad that is written still refers to "Assad gassing his own people". It's true, it's despicable, and it's just one example of how our media lies and distorts and misrepresents the news every day.
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Mar 14, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
When President Donald Trump announced in December that he wanted an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, there was more silence and opposition from the Left than approval. The 2016 election's highest-profile progressive, Senator Bernie Sanders, said virtually nothing at the time. The 2018 midterm election's Left celeb, former congressman Beto O'Rourke, kept mum too. The 2004 liberal hero, Howard Dean, came out against troop withdrawals, saying they would damage women's rights in Afghanistan.
The liberal news outlet on which Warren made her statement, MSNBC, which had already been sounding more like Fox News circa 2003, warned that withdrawal from Syria could hurt national security. The left-leaning news channel has even made common cause with Bill Kristol and other neoconservatives in its shared opposition to all things Trump.
Maddow herself has not only vocally opposed the president's decision, but has become arguably more popular than ever with liberal viewers by peddling wild-eyed anti-Trump conspiracy theories worthy of Alex Jones. Reacting to one of her cockamamie theories, progressive journalist Glenn Greenwald tweeted , "She is Glenn Beck standing at the chalkboard. Liberals celebrate her (relatively) high ratings as proof that she's right, but Beck himself proved that nothing produces higher cable ratings than feeding deranged partisans unhinged conspiracy theories that flatter their beliefs."
The Trump derangement that has so enveloped the Left on everything, including foreign policy, is precisely what makes Democratic presidential candidate Warren's Syria withdrawal position so noteworthy. One can safely assume that Sanders, O'Rourke, Dean, MSNBC, Maddow, and many of their fellow progressive travelers' silence on or resistance to troop withdrawal is simply them gauging what their liberal audiences currently want or will accept.
Warren could have easily gone either way, succumbing to the emotive demands of the Never Trump mob. She instead opted to stick to the traditional progressive position on undeclared war, even if it meant siding with the president.
... ... ...
Jack Hunter is the former political editor of Rare.us and co-authored the 2011 book The Tea Party Goes to Washington with Senator Rand Paul.
WorkingClass March 13, 2019 at 10:36 pm
Only a crushing defeat and massive casualties on the battlefield will cause ANY change in foreign policy by either party.PAX , says: March 13, 2019 at 10:45 pmThe antiwar movement is not a "liberal" movement. Hundreds of mainly your people addressed the San Francisco board of supervisors asking them to condemn an Israeli full-fledged attack on Gaza. When they were finished, without objection from one single supervisor, the issued was tabled and let sink permanently in the Bay, never to be heard of again. Had the situation been reversed and Israel under attack there most probably would have been a resolution in nanoseconds. Maybe even half the board volunteering to join the IDF? People believed Trump would act more objectively. That is why he got a lot of peace votes. What AIPAC wants there is a high probability our liberal politicians will oblige quickly and willingly. Who really represents America remains a mystery?Donald , says: March 13, 2019 at 11:40 pm"That abiding hatred will continue to play an outsized and often illogical role in determining what most Democrats believe about foreign policy."polistra , says: March 14, 2019 at 2:18 amTrue, but the prowar tendency with mainstream liberals ( think Clintonites) is older than that. The antiwar movement among mainstream liberals died the instant Obama entered the White House. And even before that Clinton and Kerry and others supported the Iraq War. I think this goes all the way back to Gulf War I, and possibly further. Democrats were still mostly antiwar to some degree after Vietnam and they also opposed Reagan's proxy wars in Central America and Angola. Some opposed the Gulf War, but it seemed a big success at the time and so it became centrist and smart to kick the Vietnam War syndrome and be prowar. Bill Clinton has his little war in Serbia, which was seen as a success and so being prowar became the centrist Dem position. Obama was careful to say he wasn't antiwar, just against dumb wars. Gore opposed going into Iraq, but on technocratic grounds.
And in popular culture, in the West Wing the liberal fantasy President was bombing an imaginary Mideast terrorist country. Showed he was a tough guy, but measured, unlike some of the even more warlike fictitious Republicans in that show. I remember Toby Ziegler, one of the main characters, ranting to his pro diplomacy wife that we needed to go in and civilize those crazy Muslims.
So it isn't just an illogical overreaction to Trump, though that is part of it.
Won't happen. Gabbard is solid and sincere but she's not Hillary so she won't be the candidate. Hillary is the candidate forever. If Hillary is too drunk to stand up, or too obviously dead, Kamala will serve as Hillary's regent.ked_x , says: March 14, 2019 at 2:48 amThe problem isn't THAT Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The problem is HOW Trump is pulling the troops out of Syria. The Left isn't fighting about 'keeping troops indefinitely in Syria' vs pulling troops out of Syria'. Its a fight over 'pulling troops out in a way that makes it so that we don't have to go back in like Obama and Iraq' vs 'backing the reckless pull out Trump is going to do'.Kasoy , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:42 amWill Democrats go full hawk?Connecticut Farmer , says: March 14, 2019 at 8:47 amFor Democrats, everything depends on what the polls say, which issues seem important to get elected. They will say anything, no matter how irrational & outrageously insane if the polls say Democrat voters like them. If American involvement in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan are less important according to the polls, Democratic 2020 hopefuls will not bother to focus on it.
For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally right, & what is morally evil.
"I am glad Donald Trump is withdrawing troops from Syria. Congress never authorized the intervention."M. Orban , says: March 14, 2019 at 9:35 amBravo Congressman Khanna. And to those progs who share his sympathies with those of us who have consistently opposed US military adventurism. Howard Dean's comments that American troops should take a bullet in support of "women's rights" in Afghanistan (!) only underscores why he serves as comic relief and really should consider wearing tassels and bells.
Having grown up under communism, I learned that it is dangerous but inevitable that propagandists eventually come to believe their own fabrications.Argon , says: March 14, 2019 at 11:23 amKasoy: "For True Christian conservatives, everything depends on how issues line up to God's laws. Polls do not change what is morally right, & what is morally evil."Dave , says: March 14, 2019 at 12:53 pmI think that needs the trademark symbol, i.e True Christians™
What do True Scotsmen do?
Recent suggests that more Christian Identity Politics will not keep us out of unwise wars.Dave , says: March 14, 2019 at 1:19 pmThe Second Coming of Jack Hunter. Given his well-documented views on race, it's no surprise he's all in on Trump. That surely outweighs Trump's massive spending and corruption that most true libertarians oppose.EarlyBird , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:04 pmTrump – and Bernie – put their fingers on the electoral zeitgeist in 2016: the oligarchy is out of control, its servants in Washington have turned their backs on the middle class, and we need to stop getting into stupid, needless wars.Erin , says: March 14, 2019 at 3:11 pmOf course, the left would come out against puppies and sunshine if Trump came out for those things.
But if they are smart, they'd recognize that on war, or his lack of interest in starting new wars, even the broken Trump clock has been right twice a day.
The flip side of this phenomenon is that so many Republican voters supported Trump's withdrawal from Syria. Had it been Obama withdrawing the troops, I suspect 80-90% of Republicans would have opposed the withdrawal.Andrew , says: March 14, 2019 at 5:14 pmThis does show that Republicans are listening to Trump more than Lindsey Graham or Marco Rubio on foreign policy. But once Trump leaves office, I fear the party will swing back towards the neocons.
"Principles", LOL? What principles? When have Democrats ever not campaigned on a "bring them home, no torture, etc" peace platform and then governed on a deep state neocon foreign policy, with entitlements to drone anyone on earth in Obama's case? At least horrible neocon Republicans are honest enough to say what they believe when they run.Mark Thomason , says: March 15, 2019 at 11:23 amDopey Trump campaigned on something different and has now surrounded himself with GOP hawks, probably because he's lazy and doesn't know any better.
Bernie, much like Ron Paul was, 180 degrees away, is the only one who might do different if he got into office, and the rate the left is going he may very well be the nominee.
Hillary was full hawk. It was Trump who said he was less hawkish. Yeah, he hasn't lived up to that either. But Democrats can't go hawkish in response. They already were the hawks.The least bad comment on Democrats is that everyone in DC is a hawk, not just them.
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Feb 19, 2019 | www.veteranstoday.com
Tulsi Gabbard has recently launched a new attack on New World Order agents and ethnic cleansers in the Middle East, and one can see why they would be upset with her. She said:
" We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."
It is too early to formulate a complete opinion on Gabbard, but she has said the right thing so far. In fact, her record is better than numerous presidents, both past and present.
As we have documented in the past, Gabbard is an Iraq war veteran, and she knew what happened to her fellow soldiers who died for Israel, the Neocon war machine, and the military industrial complex. She also seems to be aware that the war in Iraq alone will cost American taxpayers at least six trillion dollars. [1] She is almost certainly aware of the fact that at least "360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have suffered brain injuries." [2]
Gabbard is smart enough to realize that the Neocon path leads to death, chaos, and destruction. She knows that virtually nothing good has come out of the Israeli narrative in the Middle East -- a narrative which has brought America on the brink of collapse in the Middle East. Therefore, she is asking for a U-turn.
The first step for change, she says, is to "stand up against powerful politicians from both parties" who take their orders from the Neocons and war machine. These people don't care about you, me, the average American, the people in the Middle East, or the American economy for that matter. They only care about fulfilling a diabolical ideology in the Middle East and much of the world. These people ought to stop once and for all. Regardless of your political views, you should all agree with Gabbard here.
- [1] Ernesto Londono, "Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion," Washington Post , March 28, 2013; Bob Dreyfuss, The $6 Trillion Wars," The Nation , March 29, 2013; "Iraq War Cost U.S. More Than $2 Trillion, Could Grow to $6 Trillion, Says Watson Institute Study," Huffington Post , May 14, 2013; Mark Thompson, "The $5 Trillion War on Terror," Time , June 29, 2011; "Iraq war cost: $6 trillion. What else could have been done?," LA Times , March 18, 2013.
- [2] "360,000 veterans may have brain injuries," USA Today , March 5, 2009.
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Feb 19, 2019 | www.youtube.com
"We must stand up against powerful politicians from both parties who sit in their ivory towers thinking up new wars to wage, new places for people to die, wasting trillions of our taxpayer dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives and undermining our economy, our security, and destroying our middle class."
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Feb 17, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
KC February 15, 2019 at 11:16 pm
The one thing your accurate analysis leaves out is that the goal of US wars is never what the media spouts for its Wall Street masters. The goal of any war is the redistribution of taxpayer money into the bank accounts of MIC shareholders and executives, create more enemies to be fought in future wars, and to provide a rationalization for the continued primacy of the military class in US politics and culture.Barry F Keane , says: February 15, 2019 at 7:11 pmOccasionally a country may be sitting on a bunch of oil, and also be threatening to move away from the petrodollar or talking about allowing an "adversary" to build a pipeline across their land.
Otherwise war is a racket unto itself. "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
― George OrwellAlso we've always been at war with Oceania .or whatever that quote said.
Yes the neocons have a poor track record but they've succeeded at turning our republic into an empire. The mainstream media and elites of practically all western nations are unanimously pro-war. Neither political party has defined a comprehensive platform to rebuild our republic.Even you, Tucker Carlson, mock the efforts of Ilhan Omar for criticizing AIPAC and Elliott Abrams.
I don't personally care for many of her opinions but that's not what matters: if we elect another neocon government we won't last another generation. Like the lady asked Ben Franklin "What kind of government have you bequeathed us?", and Franklin answered "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
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Jul 22, 2017 | www.unz.com
Many Americans voted for Donald Trump because he vowed to end the foreign conflicts in which the US had become entangled. So far, they have been disappointed. But this week a light flashed at the end of the tunnel.
President Trump, according to numerous reliable Washington sources, has decided to end US arms supplies and logistics support to Syria's jihadist rebels that have fuelled the bloody six-year conflict. Washington, and its allies Britain and France, have persistently denied arming Syria's jihadist rebels fighting to bring down the Russian and Iranian-backed government of President Bashar Assad.
Former President George W. Bush actively considered invading Syria around 2008 in collusion with Israel. But the Israelis then pointed out that there were no Western-friendly groups to replace Assad, only extreme militant Sunni Muslim groups. Even the usually reckless Bush called off the invasion of Syria.
By contrast, Barack Obama gave a green light to the CIA to arm, train and logistically support anti-Assad jihadist rebels in Syria. Arms poured in from Lebanon and, later, Turkey, paid for by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates. Small numbers of US, British and French advisors went to Syria to teach the jihadists how to use mortars, explosives, and anti-tank weapons. The media's claim that the fighting in Syria was due to a spontaneous popular uprising was false. The repressive Assad government was widely unpopular but the uprising was another CIA 'color-style' operation.
The object of this operation was to overthrow President Assad and his Shiite-leaning regime, which was supported by Iran, a bogeyman to all the US-backed feudal Arab oil monarchies. Syria was also to be punished because it refused Washington's demands to sever ties with Iran and accept US tutelage.
Then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton championed the covert war against Syria, arranging massive shipments of arms and munitions to the rebels from Kadaffi-era arms stores in Libya, and from Egypt, Croatia, likely Serbia, Bulgaria and Azerbaijan. Once again, the Gulf Arabs paid the bill.
The offensive against Syria was accompanied by a powerful barrage of anti-Assad propaganda from the US and British media. From the background, Israel and its partisans beat the war drum against the Assad government.
The result of the western-engendered carnage in Syria was horrendous: at least 475,000 dead, 5 million Syrian refugees driven into exile in neighboring states (Turkey alone hosts three million), and another 6 million internally displaced. That is, some 11 million Syrians, or 61% of the population, driven from their homes into wretched living conditions and near famine.
Two of Syria's greatest and oldest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, have been pounded into ruins. Jihadist massacres and Russian and American air strikes have ravaged once beautiful, relatively prosperous Syria. Its ancient Christian peoples are fleeing for their lives before US and Saudi takfiri religious fanatics.
Just when it appeared the jihadists were closing in on Damascus, limited but effective Russian military intervention abruptly changed the course of the war. The Syrian Army was able to regain the military initiative and push back the jihadists. Intermixed with so-called 'takfiri' rebels are some 3,000 ISIS jihadists who were originally armed and equipped by US advisors but have now run amok. They are under fierce western air attack in Syria and Iraq and are splintering.
Russia and the US have been inching toward a major war over Syria. In fact, US intervention has been far more extensive than generally believed, as this writer has been reporting for the past five years. Turkish media linked to the government in Ankara has just revealed that the US has at least ten small military bases in northern Syria being used to support rebel jihadist forces.
Meanwhile, the US is now relying almost entirely on Kurdish militias, know in Syria as YPG, to attack ISIS and act in US interests. This has outraged Turkey, which regards YPG as part of the hated Kurdish independence movement, PKK, against which Turkey has fought for two decades. During the 1980's, I covered the Turkish-PKK conflict in eastern Anatolia.
If YPG/PKK emerges victorious from the Syrian conflict, Kurdish demands for an independent state in south eastern Turkey will intensify, threatening the breakup of the Turkish state. Kurds make up some 20% of Turkey's population of 80 million.
For this very important reason, Turkey has been pulling away from US-run NATO, and warming relations with Moscow. Turkey has NATO's second largest armed forces and key airbases that cover the Mideast.
Trump's announced retreat from Syria -- if it turns out to be real -- will mark a major turning point in US-Russian relations. It could well avoid a clash between Russia and the US, both nuclear powers. The US has no real business in Syria and no strategic interests
America's powerful neocons, who have been pressing for war against Russia, will be furious. Expect the media war against Trump to intensify. So too claims that Trump colluded with Moscow to get elected.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2017
Randal , says: July 22, 2017 at 8:58 pm GMT
exiled off mainstreet , says: July 23, 2017 at 2:18 am GMTBut this week a light flashed at the end of the tunnel. President Trump, according to numerous reliable Washington sources, has decided to end US arms supplies and logistics support to Syria's jihadist rebels that have fuelled the bloody six-year conflict.
That's fine, but the problem is that Trump's track record so far makes it impossible to give him unalloyed credit for this. At the moment it has to be counted as just another "up" moment in the rollercoaster ride that has been the Trump presidency so far. Will it foreshadow further moves towards sanity in foreign policy? Or will it just be followed by another literally stupid lurch back to the neocon-driven norm?
Looked at optimistically, you can read it as a sign that the underlying sensibleness of the patriotic "America first" noninterventionist approach (as opposed to the usual Israel/Saudi first, or US-uber-alles militarism, or "humanitarian interventionism" approach) is finally prevailing, or at least as a sign of a reduction in the US regime drive towards direct confrontation of Russia.
But looked at pessimistically, it's just an admission of the already obvious failure of one particular interventionist approach and its termination in favour of alternative approaches to the same ends, which will be followed by some idiocy such as another childish murder of Syrian conscripts when Trump is shown some more emotionally manipulative photographs.
Time will tell.
Kudos to Mr. Margolis for penning an excellent article describing the real facts of the matter against the prevailing propaganda narrative and placing the blame, including by implication war crimes responsibility, where it belongs.Gg Mo , says: July 23, 2017 at 3:14 am GMTWhy is NO ONE at UNZ covering the UN pay-to-play Corruption/Bribery trial of Ng Lap Seng ? More coming down the pike involving Ban Ki Moon's brother ! Thank Goodness for Mattew Lee at Inner City Press ! https://youtu.be/62YnvqveGYURuss , says: July 23, 2017 at 4:08 am GMT
UNZ should DEFINITELY carry his reportage as he seems to be the ONLY one at the Pressers w/ Dujarric asking questions about ANYTHING at the UN.http://www.innercitypress.com/unbribery63uncooperativeun072217.html
A sidelined John McCain should be a greatly reduced impediment to an exit from Syria.NoseytheDuke , says: July 23, 2017 at 4:12 am GMTWho exactly is the US at war against in Syria and why is it going on? http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-military-bases-in-syria-their-precise-location-is-known/5600527SND , says: July 23, 2017 at 4:28 am GMTWorkingClass , says: July 23, 2017 at 4:29 am GMTFormer President George W. Bush actively considered invading Syria around 2008 in collusion with Israel. But the Israelis then pointed out that there were no Western-friendly groups to replace Assad, only extreme militant Sunni Muslim groups. Even the usually reckless Bush called off the invasion of Syria.
You mean the Israeli government's desire that the US fragment Middle Eastern Arab states for Israel's hegemonic purposes is actually a concern for "Western-friendly groups?" And the repeated Israeli statements that "ISIS would be better than Assad" means they totally changed their mind since Bush days? Something doesn't smell quite right here.
jilles dykstra , says: July 23, 2017 at 6:25 am GMTPresident Trump, according to numerous reliable Washington sources, has decided to end US arms supplies and logistics support to Syria's jihadist rebels that have fueled the bloody six-year conflict.
Trump has decided. Perhaps. But do the CIA and/or Pentagon really care what Trump decides? Thank you for this concise summation of Imperial Washington's war against Syria.
The great thing resulting from the election of Trump is that it made quite clear how undemocratic the USA is, and how Israel influences, tries to determine, USA foreign policy. Trump and Putin agree on a partial cease fire in Syria, who objects ?: Netanyahu. What media continue accusing Trump on collusion with the enemy, Russia ? CNN, Washpost and NYT. I hope Trump survives the Cold Civil War. Kennedy did not.Ace , says: July 23, 2017 at 8:47 am GMT@Randal The goal of supporting the Kurds is still a priority, to advance Israel's fall back position of partition. It would prefer the chaos of a regime run by jihadi scum (not going to happen thanks to V. Putin) but either way we'll do Israel's bidding.Renoman , says: July 23, 2017 at 8:50 am GMTMr. Margolis is must read for me but I wonder at his embrace of the "repressive," "unpopular" Assad regime view. I don't get that impression and it is certainly not the view of Eva Bartlett or Vanessa Beeley. The chemical weapons stuff is complete garbage as Margolis knows.
Trump will be very popular if he pulls this off, war in Syria is not in the US interest and being friends with Russia is a smart move. Go Trump!Miro23 , says: July 23, 2017 at 9:01 am GMT
Good article Eric!Greg Bacon , says: Website July 23, 2017 at 9:08 am GMTThe result of the western-engendered carnage in Syria was horrendous: at least 475,000 dead, 5 million Syrian refugees driven into exile in neighboring states (Turkey alone hosts three million), and another 6 million internally displaced. That is, some 11 million Syrians, or 61% of the population, driven from their homes into wretched living conditions and near famine.
You can lay all this at the door of Israel, US Neo-cons and their Congressional and MSM collaborators + treasonous leaders like Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Same for the Iraq war (duck shoot) with its WMD lies and the MSM 9/11 trigger "Event". The US as an Israeli colony is a disaster for the people of Iraq, Libya and Syria and it's also the worst news for the 98% of Gentiles in the US who have now lost their country to these Zionist freaks.
To claim that Israel got Bush the Mad to back off from invading Syria because they were concerned about moderate head choppers being the only ones who would fill the power vacuum is laughable. Israel has supported these thugs many times with medical care, money, shelter in the stolen Golan and most importantly, their MSM buddies printing all those stories about how Assad must go.lavoisier , says: Website July 23, 2017 at 9:40 am GMTIsrael had been directing its colony, the formerly free USA, to bust up Syria and murder Assad and that we have been faithfully trying to do, but that damned Putin got in the way, so sic the MSM on him and his buddy Trump.
The illegal war against Syria is far from over, Israel is PO that Syria hasn't been destroyed and they will not take lightly some chump like Trump interfering with their plans.
@Russ I think that is a good observation. I also believe his traitorous sidekick Graham will also be a little less vocal about his support for world destruction now that his comrade in stupidity has fallen. These two obviously are bought and paid for by the Zionists. There is no other explanation for their predictable level of malice and stupidity.jacques sheete , says: July 23, 2017 at 11:17 am GMT@RussLemurmaniac , says: July 23, 2017 at 11:18 am GMTA sidelined John McCain should be a greatly reduced impediment to an exit from Syria.
Let's hope so. Unfortunately there is no shortage of crackpots to replace that reeking glob of slime.
All good points but its disgusting how left anti imperialists care more about a foreign people than the colonization and dispossession of the their own group by hordes of 'the other' from the global south under the aegis of neoliberal ideology.Che Guava , says: July 23, 2017 at 1:15 pm GMTWell, we non-USA can only be hoping. That order was one of the better, anybody who is reading English is to knowing that the building attack had nothing to do with a consulate, but the consul happened to be there at the time. Sure, probably CIA. The weapons-running operation certainly was.Michael Kenny , says: July 23, 2017 at 1:28 pm GMTHillary was terrible to making 'The Kindness of Muslims' maker the scapegoat, sending him to prison in defiance of his rights, I only saw the short, but it was both apt and funny, if there is a feature-length version, I would love to seeing it. It did exist, it seems, was shown once or twice.
Aah, memory holes.
As so often, the weakness of the argument is obvious in the first sentence: "Many Americans voted for Donald Trump because he vowed to end the foreign conflicts in which the US had become entangled". I can't say I recall any such vow. Trump is a master of doubletalk. He says everything and the contrary of everything.DESERT FOX , says: July 23, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMTMr Margolis, and others, heard what they wanted to hear and believed what they wanted to believe. Quite simply, they fell into the trap Trump set for them. Even if Trump wasn't the most pro-Israel president in US history, the Israel Lobby is there to see that US foreign policy suits Israel's interests. Israel sees Iran as its principal enemy. Putin has snuggled up to Iran and is propping up Iran's "ally", Assad. Israel thus needs to get both Assad and Putin out of Syria. By failing to stand up to Putin in Ukraine, Obama allowed him to discredit the US as Europe's, and by extension, Israel's protector and to discredit NATO as the instrument of that protection. For obvious reasons of geography, there's no way the US can defend Israel without the use of bases in Europe.
Thus, Trump has to restore US and NATO credibility and the only way to do that is to get Putin out of Ukraine and, ideally, out of power. The simplest way to do that is to fight him in Syria, where he's bogged down and cornered and cannot escape unless the US capitulates. Thus, arming or not arming this or that Syrian group is totally irrelevant. It just shows that the US can turn the heat up and down on Putin at will. I can't imagine, therefore, why US neocons would be "furious".
The longer Putin is bogged down in Syria, the better. The last thing Trump needs is to have anything he does, whether in Syria or Ukraine, billed as a "retreat" in regard to Putin. That will simply inflame Russiagate.
Trumps word means nothing, and he never said a thing about the pentagram ending their support of Isis aka al ciada, so this is much ado about nothing, the Zionists want war and war they shall have until Zionist Israel destroys America.DaveE , says: July 23, 2017 at 3:14 pm GMTZionist Israel and the U.S. and Britain created isis aka al ciada and anyone who thinks they have given up on regime change and the greater Israel plan in the Mideast is sadly mistaken. America is under Zionist control.
Could it be that Trump is waking up? In spite of all his bluster during the campaign, it's become obvious that Mr. Trump doesn't have the foggiest idea how government and politics actually works. It's just a LITTLE different than running a real-estate operation.Che Guava , says: July 23, 2017 at 3:27 pm GMTMy opinion is that that Trump, being the very insecure egotist that he is, is beginning, just barely, to realize what people actually expect, not what the neocon con-artists and rigged "opinion polls" tell him the story is.
Is Trump, maybe, just kinda sorta maybe, waking up to slimeballs like his dirty little son-in-law he so fervently followed in the past?
Anyway, Trump has been scoring big lately with his chat with Putin and this kick to the neocons' sensitive area.
Let's all write the guy and tell him he's on the right track. I'm sure the "opinion polls" will tell him just the opposite, since they're nothing more than some Jew in an office in Brooklyn telling us what we believe.
@Michael KennyJoe Hide , says: July 23, 2017 at 3:44 pm GMTYou are so clearly a harmful propagandist on so many levels that I need not to pointing it out.
I am knowing that you are to making one or two of good points at times, but only to draw to all of your lies and stupid assumptions. Essentially, to making EU= NATO=zionism is the great thing to you, hate Russia is your cause.
Your 'Michael Kenny' is as much a pseudonym as mine. It is obvious. At least, when I am posting, it is from the heart of the person behind the pseudonym and of goodwill or to informing. Reading yours, it is very difficult to see any good intentions.
Many others here are to having critical faculties. They also will be seeing you for what you are, just a nasty and cheap propagandist, with posts that are always being too long.
Are you on some kind of 'net agent of influence programme? Sure is looking like it.
The evidence seems to support the view that an informational war, with some actual murders, is taking place within and between, the CIA, FBI, NSA, other U.S. agencies and institutions. Also this happened in Russia but as Putin survived and consolidated power, it's much less so now. It is probably happening in many countries. I have come to the conclusion that these "hidden wars" within seemingly unified groups is part and parcel of human nature. The bad guy deceivers normally have a huge advantage in that they become much more skilled at deceiving. Their great disadvantage is that they eventually go so obviously nuts that nobody believes them anymore!Randal , says: July 23, 2017 at 4:30 pm GMTBruce Marshall , says: July 23, 2017 at 4:37 pm GMTTheir great disadvantage is that they eventually go so obviously nuts that nobody believes them anymore!
And yet John McCain and Lindsey Graham keep on getting re-elected, usually by huge margins.
Where is the "Special Prosecutor" on this? Assange: 'CIA Not Only Armed Syria's Insurgents -- It Paid Their Salaries' http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=57076Father Coughlin , says: July 23, 2017 at 4:59 pm GMTSince the Resistance has relentlessly played the bogus Russia narrative to a point where it is hampering him from getting anything done (thus jeopardizing his reelection, if not some crazy impeachment attempt), Trump's only choice, according to Jiu-Jitsu, is to flip the script and make the Left the pro-War party. Go!Sean , says: July 23, 2017 at 5:45 pm GMTnsa , says: July 23, 2017 at 7:33 pm GMThttp://www.martin-van-creveld.com/disaster-area/
Some years ago I had the pleasure of coming across a book by the aged doyen of "oriental studies," Bernard Lewis. Titled What Went Wrong and first published in 2002, it tried to explain how and why the brilliant civilization of the Middle Ages had declined until, finally, it reached the point where the epithet "Arab" is positive only when applied to a horse.Though I read it twice, I still do not know.
Must be tough typing out a couple thousand word screed re the destruction of the ME without mentioning the vile jooies and their total domination of American foreign policy in the area. The US Knesset on the Potomac is now actually trying to pass a law outlawing any criticism of the bloodthirsty Izzies ..with very stiff fines for offenders. Need any more evidence?Alden , says: July 23, 2017 at 7:35 pm GMT@Sean The brilliant Muslim civilization is a myth It never existed.Greg Bacon , says: Website July 23, 2017 at 7:38 pm GMTThe Arabs conquered the Middle East and blundered into the legacy of Egypt, Persia Mesopotamia, Greece Rome, and the Byzantine empire. Claiming the Muslim primitive Arabs created the legacy of those civilizations is like saying Walter Raleigh developed tobacco or the Spanish conquerors developed potatoes and corn. Iranians still resent the conquest of their ancient civilization by the barbarian primitive Arabs
It took about 500 years but the Muslim Arabs destroyed those civilization. Morrish Spain? Every one of those great buildings, from architects and engineers to porters were built by European slaves.
It was the numerous Christians and less numerous Jews who kept things going. The Turks wouldn't even hire Muslim Arabs for any kind of government positions in the Arab countries. They used local Christians, Jews and imported slave Europeans.
I've read Bernard Lewis. He's outdated. For a long time in the 19th and early 20th century Jews wrote many of those books extolling the superiority of Muslim Jewish countries over us blue eyed barbarians. Lewis is one of those writers
@Michael Kenny For obvious reasons of geography, there's no way the US can defend Israel without the use of bases in Europe.Art , says: July 23, 2017 at 8:34 pm GMTWhy should the USA defend Israel from its horrible choices, especially being an Apartheid nightmare? Why should we defend a nation that has attacked our ships, bases and personnel numerous times? Why should we defend a nation that has control of our economy thru their choke-hold on the FED and Treasury? Why should we defend a nation that acts like a spoiled child anytime it doesn't get it's way and goes on murderous rampages against the world's biggest concentration camp, Gaza? Why should we defend a nation that attacked us on 9/11, then had their MSM whores blame the Muslim world?
The illness of McCain will give the prospects for cooperation between the US and Russian a big boost. Here is an interesting article on the subject.exiled off mainstreet , says: July 23, 2017 at 9:05 pm GMTDismantling McCain's Disastrous Legacy Should Now Be Trump's Top Priority
By Tom LuongoThe Arizona senator's absence creates a unique opportunity for President Trump to alter the course of our foreign and domestic policy. From Iraq to Libya, Syria to Afghanistan and right up to Russia's borders in Ukraine, McCain's bloody paw prints are all over more than a decade of American foreign policy blunders.
@Greg Bacon The attempted sinking of the USS Liberty in 1967 and the actions of the US government since reveal 50 years of the Israeli tail wagging the yankee dog. It is unprecedented in history for an auxilliary satellite state to so dominate the foreign policy actions of what should be the dominant power. Whether or not 9-11 was a conspiracy is interesting but not dispositive, since whatever its cause, whether or not intentionally planned or simply allowed to happen, as I suspect, the event was used as a Reichstag fire event by the yankee regime and its Israeli patrons to brush aside any remaining opposition to the neocon project. By the way, I am totally convinced that the anthrax attacks occurring in the wake of 9-11 were to secure this result.annamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 9:36 pm GMT@NoseytheDuke " ten U.S. bases in the Syrian provinces of Al-Hasakah, Manbij and Raqqa, as well as in the areas of Harab-Isk and Rmeilan The source also reported on the number of the U.S. servicemen deployed at these bases."annamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 9:38 pm GMT
Splendid. Illegally, on a territory of the sovereign state of Syria, without any permission from the Syrian government. http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-u-s-military-bases-in-syria-their-precise-location-is-known/5600527
But for the demonizers of Iran and apologists of Kievan junta, the US involvement in Syria is a clear case of bringing the "democracy on the march."@WorkingClass "But do the CIA and/or Pentagon really care what Trump decides?"annamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 9:42 pm GMT
-- You mean, the CIA and/or Pentagon will jump as high as the Lobby tell them to jump?@Miro23 "The US as an Israeli colony is a disaster for the people of Iraq, Libya, and Syria "utu , says: July 23, 2017 at 9:45 pm GMT
Agree. A minor addition: The US as an Israeli colony is a disaster for the people of the US as well.@Alden "in the 19th and early 20th century Jews wrote many of those books extolling the superiority of Muslim Jewish countries over us blue eyed barbarians"annamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 9:47 pm GMTCorrect. But in the 2nd half of 20 c. the winds of history shifted with the creation of state of Israel and Jewish historians decided to write the history anew in which Muslims were not so good anymore. Father of Netanyahu was one of them.
Which Jewish historians do you want to believe?
@Greg Bacon "Israel had been directing its colony, the formerly free USA, to bust up Syria and murder Assad and that we have been faithfully trying to do, but that damned Putin got in the way "annamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 10:10 pm GMT
This is why the Russain Federation has been suffering the relentless barrage of demonization and economic sanctions, and this why Americans have been suffering the stupidity of the ziocon-promoted Russiangate.@DESERT FOX " the Zionists want war and war they shall have until Zionist Israel destroys America."annamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 10:15 pm GMTTrue. The Jewish communities of the EU/US, UK must decide -- now -- whether they are with western civilization or with the mythological and barbarous dream of Eretz Israel. The US, UK, and EU have been a safe harbor for the majority of Jewish people for the last 50 years. However, the Jewish Lobby is not satisfied with such trifles as the peaceful life and security and it wants Eretz Israel; PNAC (ziocons' manifest) has been used as an ideological guise.
There were certain sane Germans who tried to stop Hitler and thus to save Germany. Some of them paid for the attempts with their lives. Where are the Jewish communities of the US, UK, and EU to stop the lunatics, all these Friends of Israel and AIPAC, these pushers towards a worldwide catastrophe? See the ziocon plan in Ukraine, which made the lives of many Jews there intolerable (welcome, neo-Nazi). What is next -- the rise of antisemitism in the tolerant (for now) Europe and US?
If MSM were the honest sources of information, the westerners would have seen already the thousands and thousands of little corpses, the victims of "humanitarian interventions" of NATO/US in Libya and Syria and would already demand to hang the main war profiteers /war criminals to prevent more carnage and more war-profiteering schems.
The ongoing wars in the Middle EAst are an integral part of Eretz Israel project. Give Israel its due.@Che Guava Agreeannamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 10:40 pm GMT@Bruce Marshall This is great: "CIA not only armed Syria's insurgents -- it paid their salaries."annamaria , says: July 23, 2017 at 10:50 pm GMT
And who are these "insurgents" -- the "moderate" jihadis affiliated with ISIS and Al Qaeda?
The supposedly "manly" CIA director Mike Pompeo comes out as a banal opportunist inclined to hysterics.
Pompeo, "No one has the right to engage in the theft of secrets from America!"
Assange, "What sort of America can be "taken down" by the truth?"http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-14/wikileaks-issues-response-cia-director-mike-pompeo
"Pompeo and David B. Rivkin Jr., a senior fellow at the neoconservative think-tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argued in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that "Legal and bureaucratic impediments to surveillance should be removed." Pompeo has also suggested that National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden should be executed."
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/trumps-pro-torture-pro-israel-cia-chief
@Michael Kenny "For obvious reasons of geography, there's no way the US can defend Israel without the use of bases in Europe."Pachyderm Pachyderma , says: July 23, 2017 at 11:44 pm GMT
For obvious reasons, the sooner the US disengages from Israel, the better for the whole world.@Greg Bacon Why should you? Because Jesus was a Jew just kidding! But didn't you utter something about a chockhold on the Fed and the Treasury? Well, it may just be me but if I controlled my bitch's purse then she would be dancing to my tune too!annamaria , says: July 24, 2017 at 1:13 am GMTPaul Craig Roberts and Stephen Lendman have a word for Pompeo:anon Disclaimer , says: July 24, 2017 at 1:56 am GMThttp://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/07/23/trumps-appointees-worse-obamas/
ZeroHedge: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-23/five-weird-conspiracy-theories-cia-director-mike-pompeo "Mike Pompeo sounds increasingly unhinged when talking about Russia, Wikileaks and the media"
Can he ????anon Disclaimer , says: July 24, 2017 at 2:02 am GMTHere is one of the many views of this unstable man -- How the Trump regime was manufactured by a war inside the Deep Stat . A systemic crisis in the global Deep System has driven the violent radicalization of a Deep State faction By Nafeez Ahmed
@annamaria http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/21/tony-thomas-syria-secret-program-cia-240818anonymous Disclaimer , says: July 24, 2017 at 2:11 am GMTTop general confirms end to secret U.S. program in Syria
Special Operations commander walked back remarks that appeared to surprise the CIA. ASPEN -- U.S. Special Operations Commander Tony Thomas confirmed Friday that the U.S. had ended its covert program aiding rebel groups fighting against Syrian President Bashar Assad, saying the decision was made after assessing the years-long operation's capabilities and by no means an effort to curry favor with Assad's chief backer, Moscow . The comments appeared to take the CIA -- which declined to comment -- by surprise.
Thomas almost immediately tried to walk back his comments after leaving the stage, telling reporters he hadn't confirmed anything and was referring only to "public reporting."
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/21/tony-thomas-syria-secret-program-cia-240818
@jilles dykstra It won't come to that right away. But it will come to that if Trump does not ultimately keep the pressure on the Assad regime, and if he ignores all the drumbeats (and survives the "impeachment").edNels , says: July 24, 2017 at 2:14 am GMT@Pachyderm Pachyderma how do you know that Jesus was any such thing? A Jew? Never!annamaria , says: July 24, 2017 at 2:51 am GMT@anon Thank you for the interesting post.anon Disclaimer , says: July 24, 2017 at 5:23 am GMTHere is a transcript of an interview with S. Lavrov (Russian foreign minister), which should provide a lot of educational moments for the US Congress people and WH press corps (known as the presstitute corps): http://www.mid.ru/en/press_service/video/-/asset_publisher/i6t41cq3VWP6/content/id/2821758
Try to compare Lavrov with a typical US legislator, for example, with Maxine Waters, John McCain, and Chuck Schumer, who represent three main subgroups in the US Congress. The decades of "unnatural selection" in the US government have produced a collection of intellectual and moral pygmies, unfortunately.
Lavrov has some pretty direct and well-deserved words for Obama. Thus, Lavrov compares Obama to a small kid unable to comprehend the responsibilities of his position of a President of the US.
WHATEVER happens, Syria will remain a backward, retarded, Muslim shithole with no freedom, democracy, respect for women, free speech or press and an all around dysfuntional Arab country.dorkimundo , says: July 24, 2017 at 11:52 am GMTIt it time for the Syrian "Madman' to order another sarin gas attack against the innocent children?annamaria , says: July 24, 2017 at 1:25 pm GMT@dorkimundo It is so easy to spot a ziocon thirsty for the US resources, who is eager to see the US to waste the US limb&blood for the barbarious dream of Eretz Israelannamaria , says: July 24, 2017 at 1:26 pm GMT@dorkimundo There are hundreds of thousands of innocent children that perished because of the ziocon project in the Middle Eastannamaria , says: July 24, 2017 at 1:37 pm GMT@anon " dysfunctional Arab country."Gg Mo , says: July 24, 2017 at 1:55 pm GMT
It is fun to observe how Israelis of Soviet extraction feel superior to other Israelis and to everybody else. Check the level of "democracy, respect for women, free speech or press" in Afghanistan in the 80-s and compare the facts with the disaster brought upon Afghani women by US warriors.
Your bloodthirsty ideologues of Eretz Israel dream nothing more than creating the dysfunctional Arab countries next to Israel (see Oded Yinon plan); hence the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians of all ages in the Middle East. After this holocaust of Arabs, which was designed and promoted by Israelis and Israel-firsters in the US, your apartheid state of Israel will never recover morally. You are doomed.@RobinG He is the LAST Real Journalist at the UN pressers . Him today explain his oust of his office space at the UN and replacement by a FAKE "Egyptian" Newspaper.Che Guava , says: July 24, 2017 at 4:19 pm GMT@annamaria Annamaria,Sean , says: July 24, 2017 at 6:10 pm GMTThanks for it. Interrupted by a friend and tired, am forgetting what else I was wanting to say, but your post 42 in this thread is very good.
IMHO, as USA people say, that man is a three-dollar bill. I don't even know if it was common speech or made up by Phillip Kindred Dick, but 'phoney as a three-dollar bill', it is a great expression!
@Alden My point is the Arabs have never been easy to govern and they revolt a lot. Martin van Creveld saysannamaria , says: July 24, 2017 at 8:02 pm GMTThe aftermath of the war [WW1] saw the establishment of the colonies -- which later developed into independent states -- of Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the Gulf, and Trans-Jordan (as it then was). Saudi Arabia, which was never occupied by either Britain or France, became independent by default. [...]
Since then the peace to end all peace, as it has been called, has remained the source of endless trouble. First the British had to cope with Arab uprisings in Palestine and, on a much larger scale, in Iraq. No sooner were those revolts suppressed than trouble broke out on the border between Trans Jordan and Saudi Arabia, an entirely artificial line on the map that the local tribes refused to respect. In 1927-29 it was the turn of the French to cope with what is still remembered as the Great Syrian Revolt. [...]
How to account for all this trouble? Perhaps the most important answer is the extraordinary complexity of the region. A complexity which the new states, lacking firm roots in the population as they did, never succeeded in controlling. There are, of course, Egyptians and Syrians and Iraqis and Saudis and so forth. But there are also Israelis and Palestinians. And Arabs and Kurds. And Egyptian Muslims and Egyptian Copts. There are Sunnis and there are Shi'ites and there are Allawi's, whom some do not recognize as Muslims at all ).
The Kurds' interminable revolts have had help from the US. but really you cannot say the US created the uprising of the Kurds against every state they reside in The last time the US helped Kurds and then abandoned them. Just like the Syrian rebels. Kurds never expected anything different as they have been dumped by the US before. Leaving their erstwhile allies to their fate is something America has a reputation for. So I would not get excited about the US doing it in Syria.
@Sean " the Arabs have never been easy to govern and they revolt a lot."KA , says: July 25, 2017 at 2:33 am GMTWhen "Arabs" is replaced with "Jews", the statement could be from a book on the history of the Jewish Greek wars, "the Jews have never been easy to govern and they revolt a lot:" http://www.onjewishmatters.com/the-jewish-greek-wars/
As for Martin van Creveld, this supremacist barbarian has obtained his fame by promoting the Samson Option. " Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch (2003) as saying: " We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option
Very clear. Also explains the miserable role that the US is currently playing on the orders from the Lobby.Trump is thinking of doing what Cheney did on the CIA. He is sidelining Tillerson and urging some handpicked guys to give him what he needs not to certify Iran when it is up for agin in 90 days .zzzzzzz , says: July 25, 2017 at 1:38 pm GMT"A third source with intimate knowledge of that meeting said Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, and Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president, were particularly vocal, repeatedly asking Tillerson to explain the U.S. national security benefits of certification. "They repeatedly questioned Rex about why recertifying would be good for U.S. national security, and Rex was unable to answer," the source said. http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/21/trump-assigns-white-house-team-to-target-iran-nuclear-deal-sidelining-state-department/
It is not US interests . It is the fact that should guide Bannon , Gorka and Trump. Iran is still in the crosshairs
@Randal Trump knows how to brawl, but the Deep State knows how to boxSean , says: July 25, 2017 at 2:29 pm GMT@annamaria Israel has no external threat, Syria was always a military minnow. Israel has an internal threat inasmuch the West Bank Arabs cannot be kept as they are.RobinG , says: July 25, 2017 at 4:35 pm GMTThe US backs a two state solution and thus in the REALLY IMPORTANT THING America is NOT A TOOL OF ISRAEL.
@annamaria " free access to classified information by a group of the proven blackmailers ." Sounds like you're talking about Debbie and the DNC.annamaria , says: July 25, 2017 at 4:35 pm GMT"Israel has no external threat" Israel simply wants a destruction of the functioning neighboring states to proceed with the creation of Eretz Israel. http://www.ahavat-israel.com/eretz/future Not all Jewish people share this view of Eretz Israel but a certain aggressive and loud part of them does. The Likudniks are currently in power.Che Guava , says: July 25, 2017 at 4:38 pm GMTOded Yinon in his famous article "proceeds to analyze the weaknesses of Arab countries concluding that Israel should aim to bring about the fragmentation of the Arab world into a mosaic of ethnic and confessional groupings. "Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation," he argued, would prove to be advantageous to Israel in the short term. Ilan Peleg described it as "an authentic mirror of the thinking mode of the Israeli Right at the height of Begin's rule." Chomsky warned against complacency about these fringe ideas since, he argued: "(t)he entire history of Zionism and later that of Israel, particularly since 1967, is one of a gradual shift towards the positions of those formerly regarded as right-wing extremists." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinon_Plan
One could sympathize with the non-solvable situation for Israel, if not the horrors of the ongoing Middle Eastern wars that have been promoted by neo-& ziocons.
https://www.washingtonreport.me/2015-june-july/neocons-and-the-israel-lobby-are-promoting-war-with-iran-as-they-once-did-with-iraq.html https://thinkprogress.org/the-architects-of-war-where-are-they-now-52ff022f9bfe@dorkimundo Alright. thanks for the reply, I would guessing not 'Hungarian' like Soros.Ben Frank , says: July 25, 2017 at 7:33 pm GMTGood humored reply, that is always to being appreciated! I was so irritated by Refuvsky's bs, in a bad temper for that at the time.
Is there any evidence that Assad is not the legitimate ruler of Syria? Or that Syria is better off now than before the civil war started? Those poor people deserve peace.Dan Hayes , says: July 26, 2017 at 1:42 am GMT@annamaria annamaria,Priss Factor , says: Website July 26, 2017 at 2:07 am GMTvan Creveld also stated: "We have the capability of taking the world down with us. And I assure you that will happen before Israel goes down." Food for thought!
Tucker and Tulsi on Syria vs CIAria https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IGAXJNzPfUannamaria , says: July 26, 2017 at 8:02 pm GMT@Priss Factor It was Israel's active participation in the attempt at regime change in Syria, which has finished the undressing of the "most moral" state of Israel. Currently, the "chosen" are outraged that the CIA could scale down the US support for terrorists. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/26/fear-and-trepidation-in-tel-aviv-is-israel-losing-the-syria-war/"Despite assurances to the contrary, Israel has always been involved in the Syria conflict. Israel's repeated claims that "it maintains a policy of non-intervention in Syria's civil war," only fools US mainstream media. Not only was Israel involved in the war, it also played no role in the aid efforts, nor did it ever extend a helping hand to Syrian refugees. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have perished in the merciless war; many cities and villages were totally destroyed and millions of Syrians become refugees. While tiny and poor Lebanon has hosted over a million Syrian refugees, every country in the region and many nations around the world have hosted Syrian refugees, as well. Except Israel.
Even a symbolic government proposal to host 100 Syrian orphans was eventually dropped ." ( -- Wait when the Lobby starts squeaking that mentioning this shameful fact is antisemitic.)
Israel has major responsibility for the Syrian tragedy. Astonishingly, Israelis are planning to triple down on the support for ISIS & Co in Syria.
"Since the start of the conflict, Israel wanted to appear as if in control of the situation, at least regarding the conflict in southwestern Syria. It bombed targets in Syria as it saw fit , and casually spoke of maintaining regular contacts with certain opposition groups. In recent comments before European officials, Netanyahu admitted to striking Iranian convoys in Syria [whcih is a sovereign state] "dozens of times." But without a joint Israeli-US plan, Israel is now emerging as a weak party. Making that realization quite belatedly, Israel is becoming increasingly frustrated. Failing to obtain support from newly-elected President Donald Trump, Israel is now attempting to develop its own independent strategy.On June 18, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel has been giving "secret aid" to Syrian rebels, in the form of "cash and humanitarian aid ." -- See the US taxpayers' money in actions ($3 billion this year only). The "war on terror" came down to the "cash and humanitarian aid" to terrorists, delivered by Israel directly from the US taxpayers pockets to Israel's favorite head-choppers.
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Nov 09, 2018 | nationalinterest.org
Only well calibrated multilateral political, economic and diplomatic pressure brought to bear on Iran with many and diverse partners will produce the results we seek.
"Then there were none" was Agatha Christie's most memorable mystery about a house party in which each guest was killed off one by one. Donald Trump's policy toward Iran has resulted in much the same: a vanishing one by one of American partners who were previously supportive of U.S. leadership in curbing Iran, particularly its nuclear program.
Dozens of states, painstakingly cultivated over decades of American leadership in blocking Iran's nuclear capability, are now simply gone. One of America's three remaining allies on these issues, Saudi Arabia, has become a central player in American strategy throughout the Middle East region. But the Saudis, because of the Jamal Khashoggi killing and other reasons, may have cut itself out of the action. The United Arab Emirates, so close to the Saudis, may also fall away.
Such paucity of international support has left the Trump administration dangerously isolated. "America First" should not mean America alone. The United States risks losing the cooperation of historic and proven allies in the pursuit of other U.S. national security interests around the world, far beyond Iran.
... ... ...
European allies share many of our concerns about Iran's regional activities, but they strongly oppose U.S. reinstitution of secondary sanctions against them. They see the Trump administration's new sanctions as a violation of the nuclear agreement and UN Security Council resolutions and as undermining efforts to influence Iranian behavior. The new sanctions and those applied on November 5 only sap European interest in cooperating to stop Iran.
... ... ...
The United States cannot provoke regime change in Iran any more than it has successfully in other nations in the region. And, drawing on strategies used to topple governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States should be wary of launching or trying to spur a military invasion of Iran.
Lt. Gen. James Clapper (USAF, ret.) is the former Director of National Intelligence. Thomas R. Pickering is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Russia and India.
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www.defenddemocracy.press
... ... ...Belatedly, Israel has understood that it backed the wrong side in Syria – and it has lost. It is not really in a position to demand anything. It will not get an American enforced buffer zone beyond the Golan armistice line, nor will the Iraqi-Syrian border be closed, or somehow "supervised" on Israel's behalf.
Of course, the Syrian aspect is important, but to focus only on that, would be to "miss the forest for the trees." The 2006 war by Israel to destroy Hizbullah (egged on by the U.S., Saudi Arabia -- and even a few Lebanese) was a failure. Symbolically, for the first time in the Middle East, a technologically sophisticated, and lavishly armed, Western nation-state simply failed . What made the failure all the more striking (and painful) was that a Western state was not just bested militarily, it had lost also the electronic and human intelligence war, too -- both spheres in which the West thought their primacy unassailable.
The Fallout from Failure
Israel's unexpected failure was deeply feared in the West, and in the Gulf too. A small, armed (revolutionary) movement had stood up to Israel -- against overwhelming odds -- and prevailed: it had stood its ground. This precedent was widely perceived to be a potential regional "game changer." The feudal Gulf autocracies sensed in Hizbullah's achievement the latent danger to their own rule from such armed resistance.
The reaction was immediate. Hizbullah was quarantined -- as best the full sanctioning powers of America could manage. And the war in Syria started to be mooted as the "corrective strategy" to the 2006 failure (as early as 2007) -- though it was only with the events following 2011 that the "corrective strategy" came to implemented, à outrance .
Against Hizbullah, Israel had thrown its full military force (though Israelis always say, now, that they could have done more). And against Syria, the U.S., Europe, the Gulf States (and Israel in the background) have thrown the kitchen sink: jihadists, al-Qaeda, ISIS (yes), weapons , bribes, sanctions and the most overwhelming information war yet witnessed. Yet Syria -- with indisputable help from its allies -- seems about to prevail: it has stood its ground, against almost unbelievable odds.
Just to be clear: if 2006 marked a key point of inflection, Syria's "standing its ground" represents a historic turning of much greater magnitude . It should be understood that Saudi Arabia's (and Britain's and America's) tool of fired-up, radical Sunnism has been routed. And with it, the Gulf States, but particularly Saudi Arabia are damaged. The latter has relied on the force of Wahabbism since the first foundation of the kingdom: but Wahabbism in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq has been roundly defeated and discredited (even for most Sunni Muslims). It may well be defeated in Yemen too. This defeat will change the face of Sunni Islam.
Already, we see the Gulf Cooperation Council, which originally was founded in 1981 by six Gulf tribal leaders for the sole purpose of preserving their hereditary tribal rule in the Peninsula, now warring with each other , in what is likely to be a protracted and bitter internal fight. The "Arab system," the prolongation of the old Ottoman structures by the complaisant post-World War I victors, Britain and France, seems to be out of its 2013 "remission" (bolstered by the coup in Egypt), and to have resumed its long-term decline.
The Losing Side
Netayahu's "near panic" (if that is indeed what occurred) may well be a reflection of this seismic shift taking place in the region. Israel has long backed the losing side -- and now finds itself "alone" and fearing for its near proxies (the Jordanians and the Kurds). The "new" corrective strategy from Tel Aviv, it appears, is to focus on winning Iraq away from Iran, and embedding it into the Israel-U.S.-Saudi alliance.
If so, Israel and Saudi Arabia are probably too late into the game, and are likely underestimating the visceral hatred engendered among so many Iraqis of all segments of society for the murderous actions of ISIS. Not many believe the improbable (Western) narrative that ISIS suddenly emerged armed, and fully financed, as a result of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's alleged "sectarianism": No, as rule-of-thumb, behind each such well-breached movement -- stands a state .
Daniel Levy has written a compelling piece to argue that Israelis generally would not subscribe to what I have written above, but rather: "Netanyahu's lengthy term in office, multiple electoral successes, and ability to hold together a governing coalition [is based on] him having a message that resonates with a broader public. It is a sales pitch that Netanyahu [has] 'brought the state of Israel to the best situation in its history, a rising global force the state of Israel is diplomatically flourishing.' Netanyahu had beaten back what he had called the 'fake-news claim' that without a deal with the Palestinians 'Israel will be isolated, weakened and abandoned' facing a 'diplomatic tsunami.'
"Difficult though it is for his political detractors to acknowledge, Netanyahu's claim resonates with the public because it reflects something that is real, and that has shifted the center of gravity of Israeli politics further and further to the right. It is a claim that, if correct and replicable over time, will leave a legacy that lasts well beyond Netanyahu's premiership and any indictment he might face.
"Netanyahu's assertion is that he is not merely buying time in Israel's conflict with the Palestinians to improve the terms of an eventual and inevitable compromise. Netanyahu is laying claim to something different -- the possibility of ultimate victory, the permanent and definitive defeat of the Palestinians, their national and collective goals.
"In over a decade as prime minister, Netanyahu has consistently and unequivocally rejected any plans or practical steps that even begin to address Palestinian aspirations. Netanyahu is all about perpetuating and exacerbating the conflict, not about managing it, let alone resolving it [The] message is clear: there will be no Palestinian state because the West Bank and East Jerusalem are simply Greater Israel."
No Palestinian State
Levy continues: "The approach overturns assumptions that have guided peace efforts and American policy for over a quarter of a century: that Israel has no alternative to an eventual territorial withdrawal and acceptance of something sufficiently resembling an independent sovereign Palestinian state broadly along the 1967 lines. It challenges the presumption that the permanent denial of such an outcome is incompatible with how Israel and Israelis perceive themselves as being a democracy. Additionally, it challenges the peace-effort supposition that this denial would in any way be unacceptable to the key allies on which Israel depends
"In more traditional bastions of support for Israel, Netanyahu took a calculated gamble -- would enough American Jewish support continue to stand with an increasingly illiberal and ethno-nationalist Israel, thereby facilitating the perpetuation of the lopsided U.S.-Israel relationship? Netanyahu bet yes, and he was right."
And here is another interesting point that Levy makes:
"And then events took a further turn in Netanyahu's favor with the rise to power in the United States and parts of Central Eastern Europe (and to enhanced prominence elsewhere in Europe and the West) of the very ethno-nationalist trend to which Netanyahu is so committed, working to replace liberal with illiberal democracy. One should not underestimate Israel and Netanyahu's importance as an ideological and practical avant-garde for this trend."
Former U.S. Ambassador and respected political analyst Chas Freeman wrote recently very bluntly: "the central objective of U.S. policy in the Middle East has long been to achieve regional acceptance for the Jewish-settler state in Palestine." Or, in other words, for Washington, its Middle East policy -- and all its actions -- have been determined by "to be, or not to be": "To be" (that is) -- with Israel, or not "to be" (with Israel).
Israel's Lost Ground
The key point now is that the region has just made a seismic shift into the "not to be" camp. Is there much that America can do about that? Israel very much is alone with only a weakened Saudi Arabia at its side, and there are clear limits to what Saudi Arabia can do.
The U.S. calling on Arab states to engage more with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi seems somehow inadequate. Iran is not looking for war with Israel (as a number of Israeli analysts have acknowledged ); but, too, the Syrian President has made clear that his government intends to recover "all Syria" -- and all Syria includes the occupied Golan Heights. And this week, Hassan Nasrallah called on the Lebanese government " to devise a plan and take a sovereign decision to liberate the Shebaa Farms and the Kfarshouba Hills" from Israel.
Read also: Church Leaders Condemn 'Brutal' US-Led Attack on Syria, Praise Gov't ForcesA number Israeli commentators already are saying that the "writing is on the wall" -- and that it would be better for Israel to cede territory unilaterally, rather than risk the loss of hundreds of lives of Israeli servicemen in a futile attempt to retain it. That, though, seems hardly congruent with the Israeli Prime Minister's "not an inch, will we yield" character and recent statements .
Will ethno-nationalism provide Israel with a new support base? Well, firstly, I do not see Israel's doctrine as "illiberal democracy," but rather an apartheid system intended to subordinate Palestinian political rights. And as the political schism in the West widens, with one "wing" seeking to delegitimize the other by tarnishing them as racists, bigots and Nazis, it is clear that the real America First-ers will try, at any price, to distance themselves from the extremists.
Daniel Levy points out that the Alt-Right leader, Richard Spencer, depicts his movement as White Zionism. Is this really likely to build support for Israel? How long before the "globalists" use precisely Netanyahu's "illiberal democracy" meme to taunt the U.S. Right that this is precisely the kind of society for which they too aim: with Mexicans and black Americans treated like Palestinians?
'Ethnic Nationalism'
The increasingly "not to be" constituency of the Middle East has a simpler word for Netanyahu's "ethnic nationalism." They call it simply Western colonialism. Round one of Chas Freeman's making the Middle East " be with Israel" consisted of the shock-and-awe assault on Iraq. Iraq is now allied with Iran, and the Hashad militia (PMU) are becoming a widely mobilized fighting force. The second stage was 2006. Today, Hizbullah is a regional force, and not a just Lebanese one.
The third strike was at Syria. Today, Syria is allied with Russia, Iran, Hizbullah and Iraq. What will comprise the next round in the "to be, or not to be" war?
For all Netanyahu's bluster about Israel standing stronger, and having beaten back "what he had called the 'fake-news claim' that without a deal with the Palestinians 'Israel will be isolated, weakened and abandoned' facing a 'diplomatic tsunami,'" Netanyahu may have just discovered, in these last two weeks, that he confused facing down the weakened Palestinians with "victory" -- only at the very moment of his apparent triumph, to find himself alone in a new, "New Middle East."
Perhaps Pravda was right, and Netanyahu did appear close to panic, during his hurriedly arranged, and urgently called, Sochi summit.
[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com's " The Possible Education of Donald Trump. "]
* Alastair Crooke is a former British diplomat who was a senior figure in British intelligence and in European Union diplomacy. He is the founder and director of the Conflicts Forum.
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Sep 11, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Trump's new saber rattling against Syria, Russia and Iran goes beyond pure irony and will certainly fuel rumors embraced by critics that he is becoming senile. When Trump was running for the Presidency, he sang a radically different tune:
Donald Trump accused his Republican presidential rivals on Friday night of wanting to "start World War III over Syria," and suggested that the United States should instead let Russia deal with the problem. ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/25/donald-trump-let-russia-fight-the-islamic-state-in-syria/?utm_term=.a3579167cd97 ) 25 September 2015
If Vladimir Putin wants to launch airstrikes inside Syria, that's no problem for Donald Trump, who said Wednesday that he believes Russia's military moves in Syria are targeting ISIS and that the United States shouldn't interfere. ( https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/30/politics/donald-trump-syria-don-lemon/index.html ) 1 October 2015
Addressing Russia's intervention in the Syrian conflict, which has so far disproportionately targeted rebel-held areas with no Isis presence, Trump expressed confidence that Vladimir Putin would eventually target the Islamic State. "He's going to want to bomb Isis because he doesn't want Isis going into Russia and so he's going to want to bomb Isis," Trump said of the Russian president. "Vladimir Putin is going to want to really go after Isis, and if he doesn't it'll be a big shock to everybody."
However, Trump did note the complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, pointing out in reference to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad that Putin "is an Assad person" and "the United States doesn't like Assad". He went on to condemn the Obama administration for "backing people who they don't know who they are", and to warn that rebels backed by the United States "could be Isis". ( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/13/donald-trump-foreign-policy-doctrine-nation-building ) 13 October 2015.
That was then. Now Trump is chest thumping and trash talking Syria and Russia like the recently deceased John McCain. He now appears ready to lead the NeoCon Conga line into an escalation of the war in Syria:
President Donald Trump warned Syria and its allies Russia and Iran on Monday against attacking the last major rebel stronghold of Idlib province in the country's northwest. "President Bashar al-Assad of Syria must not recklessly attack Idlib Province," Trump wrote on Twitter. "The Russians and Iranians would be making a grave humanitarian mistake to take part in this potential human tragedy. Hundreds of thousands of people could be killed. Don't let that happen!" ( https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/03/politics/trump-syria-tweet-assad-rebel-idlib/index.html ) 4 September 2018
In a recent discussion about Syria, people familiar with the exchange said, President Trump threatened to conduct a massive attack against Mr. Assad if he carries out a massacre in Idlib, the northwestern province that has become the last refuge for more than three million people and as many as 70,000 opposition fighters that the regime considers to be terrorists. ( https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-says-syria-plans-gas-attack-in-rebel-stronghold-1536535853?mod=mktw ) 9 September 2018
PT,David Optional Guyatt , 8 hours agoThe flip-flopper Erdogan is at it again :
In an Op-Ed in WSJ:
https://www.wsj.com/article...
"Moderate rebels played a key role in Turkey's fight against terrorists in Northern #Syria; their assistance and guidance will be crucial in Idlib as well"Yep wonder where all those moderate rebels aka foreign jihadis came through after landing in IST.
Putin told him off in Tehran and now he is back on the fence or on the FUKUS side.
Guess Qatar must be pushing him to play nice by flooding him with billions .WSJ is really hoping to get the war going . This is a second article /op-ed two days in a row.
Fisk is an old school journalist who doesn't sport a parting in his tongue. I've found him to be very reliable in his reporting. His latest report reveals that despite considerable searching over a 2 day period, he could find no massed Syrian troops around Idlib ready for the looming ground battle.Don Bacon , 13 hours agoIt's not like you can miss 100,000 men and all the supporting equipment; armoured vehicles,, kitchens, field hospitals, tent cities etc. No Hezbollah, no Russians.
Which raises the question: are we being played here?
The US has no more authority to interfere in Syria domestic affairs than Syria has to interfere in US domestic affairs.blue peacock -> Don Bacon , 10 hours ago
>Syrian President Bashar Assad has authorized his forces to use chlorine gas in the assault on the last significant rebel redoubt in the country, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Who can doubt the Wall Street Journal?
>The Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, usually called the Geneva Protocol, is a treaty prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed conflicts.
> The Protocol was Signed at Geneva June 17, 1925, and Entered into force February 8, 1928, and the convention were ratified by President Ford on January 22, 1975.
>Chlorine itself is not a chemical weapon. It's a toxic industrial chemical that is very useful to purify water. It's really very important to have clean water to avoid water borne diseases. But chlorine is a chemical agent that effects the eyes and the ability to breath. When mixed with water it produces hydrochloride acid. It's not a very efficient chemical weapon because we can sense it when it's not very toxic yet. So you can run away. Using chlorine gas is not prohibited as such, but using chlorine gas as a weapon is prohibited in international armed conflicts."The US has no more authority to interfere in Syria domestic affairs than Syria has to interfere in US domestic affairs."Jack , 14 hours agoWhen has this prevented the US from intervening as it pleases over the last 100 years?
PT,Biggee Mikeee , 14 hours agoWe can be certain that the jihadi White Helmets will stage an "outrage" event, since Bolton and Nikki have already stated what the US response would be. The media I'm sure have their playbook already figured out and ready to create the necessary media hysteria.
The last two times Trump fired a few missiles and called it a day. Woodward however claims that his "anonymous" sources say that Trump wanted to assassinate Assad and Mattis walked it back to token missile strikes. Woodward also claims that the #Resistance in the White House are doing whatever they want and Trump is for all intents and purposes rather clueless about what they're up to. If this has any credence would it be possible that Bolton and Nikki and the other ziocons in the White House orchestrate a provocation by the jihadis that will then be setup to "we need a muscular response to show who's boss". You know the all too familiar argument that the US needs to act to retain credibility.
All this is coming just before the mid-terms which is a pivotal election for Trump. If he loses the House then he's up shit creek with Dems running all kinds of investigations and Mueller emboldened. How does he calculate the political implications of a deeper military engagement in Syria? IMO, many who supported him in the last election will not be very happy and their enthusiasm may waver which could be the difference in close races. OTOH, there is a perception that his economic team and policies are making a positive difference and that is benefiting the Deplorables.
Obama lost big time in his first mid-terms and did very poorly for the Democrats in both federal and state elections during his term as president. Yet the Democrat establishment has continued to back him. That may not happen with Trump as the GOP establishment will find the opportunity to go back to their traditional ways if Trump can't hold the House.
He told us here, we just didn't listen: Play Hide
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Aug 17, 2017 | www.youtube.com
Ali Haider , 1 year ago (edited)
Phil Newmann , 1 year agoRussians are really brilliant...salute you Russia
Morbius1963 , 1 year agoTillerson. What a high HYPOCRISY. The US has murdered more than 10 million people in the last 13 years and you say Assad is a war criminal for defending his own country?
Sangam Sangam , 9 months agoTillerson makes no mention of the democratic wishes of the Syrian people.
tom parankewich , 1 year agoAssad killed terrorist in Syria sent and trained by US.
Ds Vic , 1 year agoHe forgot to say they want pipelines to go through Syria pure and simple .
Lavrov is a beauty! Making illmericans look dumb as usual.
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Aug 08, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Here are ten bombshell revelations and fascinating new details to lately come out of both Sy Hersh's new book, Reporter , as well as interviews he's given since publication...
1) On a leaked Bush-era intelligence memo outlining the neocon plan to remake the Middle East
(Note: though previously alluded to only anecdotally by General Wesley Clark in his memoir and in a 2007 speech , the below passage from Seymour Hersh is to our knowledge the first time this highly classified memo has been quoted . Hersh's account appears to corroborate now retired Gen. Clark's assertion that days after 9/11 a classified memo outlining plans to foster regime change in "7 countries in 5 years" was being circulated among intelligence officials.)
From Reporter: A Memoir pg. 306 -- A few months after the invasion of Iraq, during an interview overseas with a general who was director of a foreign intelligence service, I was provided with a copy of a Republican neocon plan for American dominance in the Middle East. The general was an American ally, but one who was very rattled by the Bush/Cheney aggression. I was told that the document leaked to me initially had been obtained by someone in the local CIA station. There was reason to be rattled: The document declared that the war to reshape the Middle East had to begin "with the assault on Iraq. The fundamental reason for this... is that the war will start making the U.S. the hegemon of the Middle East. The correlative reason is to make the region feel in its bones, as it were, the seriousness of American intent and determination." Victory in Iraq would lead to an ultimatum to Damascus, the "defanging" of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization, and other anti-Israeli groups. America's enemies must understand that "they are fighting for their life: Pax Americana is on its way, which implies their annihilation." I and the foreign general agreed that America's neocons were a menace to civilization.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nUCwCgthp_E
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2) On early regime change plans in Syria
From Reporter: A Memoir pages 306-307 -- Donald Rumsfeld was also infected with neocon fantasy. Turkey had refused to permit America's Fourth Division to join the attack of Iraq from its territory, and the division, with its twenty-five thousand men and women, did not arrive in force inside Iraq until mid-April, when the initial fighting was essentially over. I learned then that Rumsfeld had asked the American military command in Stuttgart, Germany, which had responsibility for monitoring Europe, including Syria and Lebanon, to begin drawing up an operational plan for an invasion of Syria. A young general assigned to the task refused to do so, thereby winning applause from my friends on the inside and risking his career. The plan was seen by those I knew as especially bizarre because Bashar Assad, the ruler of secular Syria, had responded to 9/11 by sharing with the CIA hundreds of his country's most sensitive intelligence files on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hamburg, where much of the planning for 9/11 was carried out... Rumsfeld eventually came to his senses and back down, I was told...
3) On the Neocon deep state which seized power after 9/11
From Reporter: A Memoir pages 305-306 -- I began to comprehend that eight or nine neoconservatives who were political outsiders in the Clinton years had essentially overthrown the government of the United States -- with ease . It was stunning to realize how fragile our Constitution was. The intellectual leaders of that group -- Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle -- had not hidden their ideology and their belief in the power of the executive but depicted themselves in public with a great calmness and a self-assurance that masked their radicalism . I had spent many hours after 9/11 in conversations with Perle that, luckily for me, helped me understand what was coming. (Perle and I had been chatting about policy since the early 1980s, but he broke off relations in 1993 over an article I did for The New Yorker linking him, a fervent supporter of Israel, to a series of meetings with Saudi businessmen in an attempt to land a multibillion-dollar contract from Saudi Arabia . Perle responded by publicly threatening to sue me and characterizing me as a newspaper terrorist. He did not sue.
Meanwhile, Cheney had emerged as a leader of the neocon pack. From 9/11 on he did all he could to undermine congressional oversight. I learned a great deal from the inside about his primacy in the White House , but once again I was limited in what I would write for fear of betraying my sources...
I came to understand that Cheney's goal was to run his most important military and intelligence operations with as little congressional knowledge, and interference, as possible. I was fascinating and important to learn what I did about Cheney's constant accumulation of power and authority as vice president , but it was impossible to even begin to verify the information without running the risk that Cheney would learn of my questioning and have a good idea from whom I was getting the information.
4) On Russian meddling in the US election
From the recent Independent interview based on his autobiography -- Hersh has vociferously strong opinions on the subject and smells a rat. He states that there is "a great deal of animosity towards Russia. All of that stuff about Russia hacking the election appears to be preposterous." He has been researching the subject but is not ready to go public yet.
Hersh quips that the last time he heard the US defense establishment have high confidence, it was regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He points out that the NSA only has moderate confidence in Russian hacking. It is a point that has been made before; there has been no national intelligence estimate in which all 17 US intelligence agencies would have to sign off. "When the intel community wants to say something they say it High confidence effectively means that they don't know."
5) On the Novichok poisoning
From the recent Independent interview -- Hersh is also on the record as stating that the official version of the Skripal poisoning does not stand up to scrutiny. He tells me: "The story of novichok poisoning has not held up very well. He [Skripal] was most likely talking to British intelligence services about Russian organised crime." The unfortunate turn of events with the contamination of other victims is suggestive, according to Hersh, of organised crime elements rather than state-sponsored actions –though this files in the face of the UK government's position.
Hersh modestly points out that these are just his opinions. Opinions or not, he is scathing on Obama – "a trimmer articulate [but] far from a radical a middleman". During his Goldsmiths talk, he remarks that liberal critics underestimate Trump at their peril.
He ends the Goldsmiths talk with an anecdote about having lunch with his sources in the wake of 9/11 . He vents his anger at the agencies for not sharing information. One of his CIA sources fires back: "Sy you still don't get it after all these years – the FBI catches bank robbers, the CIA robs banks." It is a delicious, if cryptic aphorism.
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6) On the Bush-era 'Redirection' policy of arming Sunni radicals to counter Shia Iran, which in a 2007 New Yorker article Hersh accurately predicted would set off war in Syria
From the Independent interview : [Hersh] tells me it is "amazing how many times that story has been reprinted" . I ask about his argument that US policy was designed to neutralize the Shia sphere extending from Iran to Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon and hence redraw the Sykes-Picot boundaries for the 21st century.
He goes on to say that Bush and Cheney "had it in for Iran", although he denies the idea that Iran was heavily involved in Iraq: "They were providing intel, collecting intel The US did many cross-border hunts to kill ops [with] much more aggression than Iran"...
He believes that the Trump administration has no memory of this approach. I'm sure though that the military-industrial complex has a longer memory...
I press him on the RAND and Stratfor reports including one authored by Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz in which they envisage deliberate ethno-sectarian partitioning of Iraq . Hersh ruefully states that: "The day after 9/11 we should have gone to Russia. We did the one thing that George Kennan warned us never to do – to expand NATO too far."
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7) On the official 9/11 narrative
From the Independent interview : We end up ruminating about 9/11, perhaps because it is another narrative ripe for deconstruction by sceptics. Polling shows that a significant proportion of the American public believes there is more to the truth. These doubts have been reinforced by the declassification of the suppressed 28 pages of the 9/11 commission report last year undermining the version that a group of terrorists acting independently managed to pull off the attacks. The implication is that they may well have been state-sponsored with the Saudis potentially involved.
Hersh tells me: "I don't necessarily buy the story that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11. We really don't have an ending to the story. I've known people in the [intelligence] community. We don't know anything empirical about who did what" . He continues: "The guy was living in a cave. He really didn't know much English. He was pretty bright and he had a lot of hatred for the US. We respond by attacking the Taliban. Eighteen years later How's it going guys?"
8) On the media and the morality of the powerful
From a recent The Intercept interview and book review -- If Hersh were a superhero, this would be his origin story. Two hundred and seventy-four pages after the Chicago anecdote, he describes his coverage of a massive slaughter of Iraqi troops and civilians by the U.S. in 1991 after a ceasefire had ended the Persian Gulf War. America's indifference to this massacre was, Hersh writes, "a reminder of the Vietnam War's MGR, for Mere Gook Rule: If it's a murdered or raped gook, there is no crime." It was also, he adds, a reminder of something else: "I had learned a domestic version of that rule decades earlier" in Chicago. "Reporter" demonstrates that Hersh has derived three simple lessons from that rule:
- The powerful prey mercilessly upon the powerless, up to and including mass murder.
- The powerful lie constantly about their predations.
- The natural instinct of the media is to let the powerful get away with it.
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Apr 26, 2018 | www.strategic-culture.org
False Flag is a concept that goes back centuries. It was considered to be a legitimate ploy by the Greeks and Romans, where a military force would pretend to be friendly to get close to an enemy before dropping the pretense and raising its banners to reveal its own affiliation just before launching an attack. In the sea battles of the eighteenth century among Spain, France and Britain hoisting an enemy flag instead of one's own to confuse the opponent was considered to be a legitimate ruse de guerre , but it was only "honorable" if one reverted to one's own flag before engaging in combat.
Today's false flag operations are generally carried out by intelligence agencies and non-government actors including terrorist groups, but they are only considered successful if the true attribution of an action remains secret. There is nothing honorable about them as their intention is to blame an innocent party for something that it did not do. There has been a lot of such activity lately and it was interesting to learn by way of a leak that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has developed a capability to mimic the internet fingerprints of other foreign intelligence services. That means that when the media is trumpeting news reports that the Russians or Chinese hacked into U.S. government websites or the sites of major corporations, it could actually have been the CIA carrying out the intrusion and making it look like it originated in Moscow or Beijing. Given that capability, there has been considerable speculation in the alternative media that it was actually the CIA that interfered in the 2016 national elections in the United States.
False flags can be involved in other sorts of activity as well. The past year's two major alleged chemical attacks carried out against Syrian civilians that resulted in President Donald Trump and associates launching 160 cruise missiles are pretty clearly false flag operations carried out by the rebels and terrorist groups that controlled the affected areas at the time. The most recent reported attack on April 7th might not have occurred at all according to doctors and other witnesses who were actually in Douma. Because the rebels succeeded in convincing much of the world that the Syrian government had carried out the attacks, one might consider their false flag efforts to have been extremely successful.
The remedy against false flag operations such as the recent one in Syria is, of course, to avoid taking the bait and instead waiting until a thorough and objective inspection of the evidence has taken place. The United States, Britain and France did not do that, preferring instead to respond to hysterical press reports by "doing something." If the U.N. investigation of the alleged attack turns up nothing, a distinct possibility, it is unlikely that they will apologize for having committed a war crime.
The other major false flag that has recently surfaced is the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury England on March 4th. Russia had no credible motive to carry out the attack and had, in fact, good reasons not to do so. The allegations made by British Prime Minister Theresa May about the claimed nerve agent being "very likely" Russian in origin have been debunked, in part through examination by the U.K.'s own chemical weapons lab. May, under attack even within her own party, needed a good story and a powerful enemy to solidify her own hold on power so false flagging something to Russia probably appeared to be just the ticket as Moscow would hardly be able to deny the "facts" being invented in London. Unfortunately, May proved wrong and the debate ignited over her actions, which included the expulsion of twenty-three Russian diplomats, has done her severe damage. Few now believe that Russia actually carried out the poisoning and there is a growing body of opinion suggesting that it was actually a false flag executed by the British government or even by the CIA.
The lesson that should be learned from Syria and Skripal is that if "an incident" looks like it has no obvious motive behind it, there is a high probability that it is a false flag. A bit of caution in assigning blame is appropriate given that the alternative would be a precipitate and likely disproportionate response that could easily escalate into a shooting war.
Tags: CIA
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May 31, 2018 | www.wsws.org
"Government propaganda and the war on terror from 9/11 to Syria"
Media on Trial held a successful event in Leeds on Sunday, in the face of sustained efforts to prevent the meeting taking place.
The group was formed by Frome Stop War, based in Somerset. Working with academics, investigative journalists and other interested parties and individuals, and drawing on the illegal 2003 invasion of Iraq, Media on Trial seeks to "cultivate public scepticism when faced with establishment and corporate media's partisan reporting at times of conflict". It held well-attended meetings in Frome and London last year. Its success in exposing the ongoing regime-change operations in Syria, and government/media propaganda to this end, has made its members the subject of an organised media smear campaign, culminating in efforts to silence it altogether.
" Government propaganda and the war on terror from 9/11 to Syria" was booked at Leeds City Museum. But in an assault on free speech, Labour-run Leeds City Council in West Yorkshire cancelled the event .
Sheila Coombes speaking at Media on TrialSheila Coombes (Frome Stop War) has reported that the ban, made on May 3 -- World Press Freedom Day -- came after a series of attacks on several of the featured speakers by the Huffington Post , Guardian and Times newspapers as "Assad Apologists".
Among those targeted were Professor Piers Robinson (University of Sheffield), Professor Tim Hayward (University of Edinburgh) -- both of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM) -- and investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley.
Having travelled to Leeds to check out the venue, Coombes was told that Leeds City Council had cancelled the event, suggesting that "security issues" were involved. She was informed that it was a blanket ban and that no other council-run venue would host it.
Less than an hour after she had been informed, the Yorkshire Post ran an online article welcoming the ban, followed by a similar report in the Huffington Post . The speed of publication suggests that these media outlets were aware of the ban before Coombes herself had been informed.
Piers Robinson speaking at the Media on Trial eventCoombes reports that she was in contact with police regarding security arrangements for the event and that she had been informed by the police officer in charge that he had advised Leeds City Council there was "no intelligence to assess a threat". A second alternative private venue was also cancelled.
Media on Trial was forced to keep details of the third venue secret until shortly before it was due to open and restrict entrance to those who had already purchased tickets. The panel was eventually able to go ahead on Sunday at the Baab-ul-llm Islamic education centre, one of the few venues prepared to stand in defiance of this campaign of censorship. Approximately 200 people attended.
The reports delivered during the four-hour meeting provided a devastating exposure of the connection between propaganda and censorship by the media and the warmongering of governments in Britain, the United States and across the world.
Professor Piers Robinson (Chair in Politics, Society and Political Journalism) spoke on the rebranding of government propaganda as "public relations." Drawing on his research into the Iraq war, he cited material from the Chilcot Inquiry into the war confirming the systematic manipulation and exaggeration of "intelligence" on Iraq's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction. This included discussions between the US and British governments over how the 9/11 terror attacks could be used for regime change operations, under the slogan of the "war on terror", which Robinson described as a propaganda slogan for mobilising support for military operations.
Robert Stuart is an independent researcher whose presentation on the "irregularities" in the BBC Panorama documentary, "Saving Syria's Children," encouraged film producer and writer Victor Lewis-Smith to tear up his BBC contract in disgust.
Robert Stuart speaking at the Media on Trial eventStuart gave a presentation on his examination of film recorded by BBC personnel at Atareb Hospital in Aleppo on August 26, 2013 purporting to show the aftermath of a napalm-style bombing by Syrian government forces. The footage was broadcast the same evening that parliament delivered a shock vote against a military attack on Syria. He showed that much of it was staged. Not only did this potentially include the use of military casualty trauma simulations, but BBC personnel were travelling in vehicles displaying ISIS flags and alongside senior members of the western-funded White Helmets.
Professor Tim Hayward (Environmental Political Theory) questioned the morality of the media presenting information that was untrue and its implications for democracy and society. He questioned the media's complicity in glorifying jihadi figures, despite this being in contravention of the British governments' own anti-terror laws. He drew attention to broadcasts on Channel 4 that provided flattering accounts of British women signing up for jihad. The media were guilty of inverting the truth and placing a "lockdown" on information that breached the rudiments of journalistic integrity.
American journalist and broadcaster Patrick Henningsen (21st Century Wire), drew attention to the unprecedented conditions in which the meeting was being held, "in secret, in a tent".
It was impossible to have a functioning democracy without a functioning fourth estate, he said. This had been the gold standard but was no longer the case. Henningsen noted widespread popular opposition to war in the US that successive presidential candidates had sought to manipulate, only to betray once in power -- from George W. Bush to Barack Obama and Donald Trump.
The mainstream media have enormous assets and resources but claim democracy is threatened by "fake news", when they are the purveyors of fake news and the real threat to democracy.
Peter Ford is a former UK ambassador to Syria (2003–2006) and now Director of the British Syrian Society. He noted that the government had been forced to convene the Leveson Inquiry into the media after the phone-hacking scandal involving Murdoch's News of the World . But those actions were trivial in comparison with the real charge sheet that needed to be presented against the media: that of "war mongering and aiding and abetting war mongering".
Vanessa Beeley is an international investigative journalist and photographer who had reported from inside Syria (including East Aleppo), Egypt and Palestine. She played an important role in exposing Syria's White Helmets as an arm of western propaganda and regime change operations.
She delivered a moving account of the situation within Syria and the capital Damascus. In addition to detailing the role of the White Helmets and other institutions financed and backed by western governments, Beeley noted that, especially following the Second World War, pro-war propaganda was deemed a threat to peace. The Nuremberg Trials in 1946 characterised propaganda to facilitate war as a serious crime against humanity; one of the gravest that could be committed. Today, those who advocate peace and the defence of international law are smeared and silenced, while those who promote war are being lauded in the media.
In the short time available for questions, contributions were made, including the possibility of practical action against war-mongering.
Julie Hyland, speaking for the World Socialist Web Site , was greeted warmly by the audience for raising that the high point of the international campaign of smears and censorship is the attack on Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is in grave danger of eviction from the Ecuadorian Embassy and extradition to the United States.
Henningson replied that the embassy had determined to cut Assange's internet access and personal communications while Syria was being targeted for military strikes. "I don't underestimate the influence of Julian Assange at those critical times. His own website was taken offline as the air strike by the US, Britain and France were happening, along with several other web sites". He added, "Julian Assange is being silenced because they don't want someone like him to have a platform".
Video of the Media on Trial Leeds event can be viewed here
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May 05, 2018 | www.unz.com
I first encountered Trotskyists in Minnesota half a century ago during the movement against the Vietnam War. I appreciated their skill in organizing anti-war demonstrations and their courage in daring to call themselves "communists" in the United States of America – a profession of faith that did not groom them for the successful careers enjoyed by their intellectual counterparts in France. So I started my political activism with sympathy toward the movement. In those days it was in clear opposition to U.S. imperialism, but that has changed.
The first thing one learns about Trotskyism is that it is split into rival tendencies. Some remain consistent critics of imperialist war, notably those who write for the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS).
Others, however, have translated the Trotskyist slogan of "permanent revolution" into the hope that every minority uprising in the world must be a sign of the long awaited world revolution – especially those that catch the approving eye of mainstream media. More often than deploring U.S. intervention, they join in reproaching Washington for not intervening sooner on behalf of the alleged revolution.
A recent article in the International Socialist Review (issue #108, March 1, 2018) entitled "Revolution and counterrevolution in Syria" indicates so thoroughly how Trotskyism goes wrong that it is worthy of a critique. Since the author, Tony McKenna, writes well and with evident conviction, this is a strong not a weak example of the Trotskyist mindset.
McKenna starts out with a passionate denunciation of the regime of Bashar al Assad, which, he says, responded to a group of children who simply wrote some graffiti on a wall by "beating them, burning them, pulling their fingernails out". The source of this grisly information is not given. There could be no eye witnesses to such sadism, and the very extremism sounds very much like war propaganda – Germans carving up Belgian babies.
But this raises the issue of sources. It is certain that there are many sources of accusations against the Assad regime, on which McKenna liberally draws, indicating that he is writing not from personal observation, any more than I am. Clearly, he is strongly disposed to believe the worst, and even to embroider it somewhat. He accepts and develops without the shadow of a doubt the theory that Assad himself is responsible for spoiling the good revolution by releasing Islamic prisoners who went on to poison it with their extremism. The notion that Assad himself infected the rebellion with Islamic fanaticism is at best a hypothesis concerning not facts but intentions, which are invisible. But it is presented as unchallengeable evidence of Assad's perverse wickedness.
This interpretation of events happens to dovetail neatly with the current Western doctrine on Syria, so that it is impossible to tell them apart. In both versions, the West is no more than a passive onlooker, whereas Assad enjoys the backing of Iran and Russia.
"Much has been made of Western imperial support for the rebels in the early years of the revolution. This has, in fact, been an ideological lynchpin of first the Iranian and then the Russian military interventions as they took the side of the Assad government. Such interventions were framed in the spirit of anticolonial rhetoric in which Iran and Russia purported to come to the aid of a beleaguered state very much at the mercy of a rapacious Western imperialism that was seeking to carve the country up according to the appetites of the US government and the International Monetary Fund ", according to McKenna.
Whose "ideological lynchpin"? Not that of Russia, certainly, whose line in the early stages of its intervention was not to denounce Western imperialism but to appeal to the West and especially to the United States to join in the fight against Islamic extremism.
Neither Russia nor Iran "framed their interventions in the spirit of anticolonial rhetoric" but in terms of the fight against Islamic extremism with Wahhabi roots.
In reality, a much more pertinent "framing" of Western intervention, taboo in the mainstream and even in Moscow, is that Western support for armed rebels in Syria was being carried out to help Israel destroy its regional enemies.
The Middle East nations attacked by the West – Iraq, Libya and Syria – all just happen to be, or to have been, the last strongholds of secular Arab nationalism and support for Palestinian rights.
There are a few alternative hypotheses as to Western motives – oil pipelines, imperialist atavism, desire to arouse Islamic extremism in order to weaken Russia (the Brzezinski gambit) – but none are as coherent as the organic alliance between Israel and the United States, and its NATO sidekicks.
It is remarkable that McKenna's long article (some 12 thousand words) about the war in Syria mentions Israel only once (aside from a footnote citing Israeli national news as a source). And this mention actually equates Israelis and Palestinians as co-victims of Assad propaganda: the Syrian government "used the mass media to slander the protestors, to present the revolution as the chaos orchestrated by subversive international interests (the Israelis and the Palestinians were both implicated in the role of foreign infiltrators)."
No other mention of Israel, which occupies Syrian territory (the Golan Heights) and bombs Syria whenever it wants to.
Only one, innocuous mention of Israel! But this article by a Trotskyist mentions Stalin, Stalinists, Stalinism no less than twenty-two times !
And what about Saudi Arabia, Israel's de facto ally in the effort to destroy Syria in order to weaken Iran? Two mentions, both implicitly denying that notorious fact. The only negative mention is blaming the Saudi family enterprise for investing billions in the Syrian economy in its neoliberal phase. But far from blaming Saudi Arabia for supporting Islamic groups, McKenna portrays the House of Saud as a victim of ISIS hostility.
Clearly, the Trotskyist delusion is to see the Russian Revolution everywhere, forever being repressed by a new Stalin. Assad is likened to Stalin several times.
This article is more about the Trotskyist case against Stalin than it is about Syria.
This repetitive obsession does not lead to a clear grasp of events which are not the Russian revolution. And even on this pet subject, something is wrong.
The Trotskyists keep yearning for a new revolution, just like the Bolshevik revolution. Yes, but the Bolshevik revolution ended in Stalinism. Doesn't that tell them something? Isn't it quite possible that their much-desired "revolution" might turn out just as badly in Syria, if not much worse?
Throughout history, revolts, uprisings, rebellions happen all the time, and usually end in repression. Revolution is very rare. It is more a myth than a reality, especially as Trotskyists tend to imagine it: the people all rising up in one great general strike, chasing their oppressors from power and instituting people's democracy. Has this ever happened?
For the Trotskyists, this seem to be the natural way things should happen and is stopped only by bad guys who spoil it out of meanness.
In our era, the most successful revolutions have been in Third World countries, where national liberation from Western powers was a powerful emotional engine. Successful revolutions have a program that unifies people and leaders who personify the aspirations of broad sectors of the population. Socialism or communism was above all a rallying cry meaning independence and "modernization" – which is indeed what the Bolshevik revolution turned out to be. If the Bolshevik revolution turned Stalinist, maybe it was in part because a strong repressive leader was the only way to save "the revolution" from its internal and external enemies. There is no evidence that, had he defeated Stalin, Trotsky would have been more tender-hearted.
Countries that are deeply divided ideologically and ethnically, such as Syria, are not likely to be "modernized" without a strong rule.
McKenna acknowledges that the beginning of the Assad regime somewhat redeemed its repressive nature by modernization and social reforms. This modernization benefited from Russian aid and trade, which was lost when the Soviet Union collapsed. Yes, there was a Soviet bloc which despite its failure to carry out world revolution as Trotsky advocated, did support the progressive development of newly independent countries.
If Bashar's father Hafez al Assad had some revolutionary legitimacy in McKenna's eyes, there is no excuse for Bashar.
"In the context of a global neoliberalism, where governments across the board were enacting the most pronounced forms of deregulation and overseeing the carving up of state industries by private capital, the Assad government responded to the heightening contradictions in the Syrian economy by following suit -- by showing the ability to march to the tempo of foreign investment while evincing a willingness to cut subsidies for workers and farmers." The neoliberal turn impoverished people in the countryside, therefore creating a situation that justified "revolution".
This is rather amazing, if one thinks about it. Without the alternative Soviet bloc, virtually the whole world has been obliged to conform to anti-social neoliberal policies. Syria included. Does this make Bashar al Assad so much more a villain than every other leader conforming to U.S.-led globalization?
McKenna concludes by quoting Louis Proyect: "If we line up on the wrong side of the barricades in a struggle between the rural poor and oligarchs in Syria, how can we possibly begin to provide a class-struggle leadership in the USA, Britain, or any other advanced capitalist country?"
One could turn that around. Shouldn't such a Marxist revolutionary be saying: "if we can't defeat the oligarchs in the West, who are responsible for the neoliberal policies imposed on the rest of the world, how can we possibly begin to provide class-struggle leadership in Syria?"
The trouble with Trotskyists is that they are always "supporting" other people's more or less imaginary revolutions. They are always telling others what to do. They know it all. The practical result of this verbal agitation is simply to align this brand of Trotskyism with U.S imperialism. The obsession with permanent revolution ends up providing an ideological alibi for permanent war.
For the sake of world peace and progress, both the United States and its inadvertent Trotskyist apologists should go home and mind their own business.
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Apr 17, 2018 | www.unz.com
Many, including Russia's President Putin, have asked why the US launched an illegal attack on Syria prior to the chemical weapons inspectors examining the site of the alleged chemical attack.
This popular question completely misses the point. The US attack on Syria is a clear and indisputable war crime against a sovereign country regardless of whether Syria used a chemical weapon in driving the Washington supported terrorists from Douma. No one acted to stop Washington's war crime. Some of Washington's vassals, such as Germany and Italy, refused to participate in Washington's war crime, but no one attempted to block it. The impotent UN Security Council, to which Russia is wasting its time appealing, the EU, NATO, Russia and China themselves did nothing to stop Washington's Nazi era war crime.
Russia said that if Washington's attack harmed its citizens, there would be military consequences, but Russia did not protect its ally Syria from the attack.
Perhaps it doesn't matter as Washington's attack was carefully conducted so as to have no effect except to serve as a face-saver for Trump. Apparently no one was killed and no damage was done to anything real except to a facility in which anti-venom for snake bites was being produced.
On the other hand, it does matter, because of the perception that the American presstitutes have created that it was a great victory for America over the evil Syrian government and the evil Russian government that supports them. This perception, which the presstitutes have created with their fake news, justifies the war crime and will lead to more attacks on Syria.
It is unlikely that the UN Security Council will condemn Washington, which pays 25% of the UN's budget. Moreover, the Security Council is loaded up with Washington's vassals, and they will not vote to censure their liegelord.
Putin is wasting his time taking the matter to the Security Council, unless his purpose is to prove that every Western institution is completely corrupt. As most informed people already know this, I don't understand the point of proving the known. Putin should read Eric Zuesse's article before he puts too much faith in the UN. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/04/17/how-us-has-virtually-destroyed-un.html
As I have written on a number of occasions, I admire Putin's Christian character of sidestepping the beatings he continuously takes from Washington in order to save the world from the massive deaths of a world war. The problem is that by turning the other cheek, Putin encourages more aggression from Washington. Putin is dealing with neoconservative psychopaths. He is not dealing with common sense.
During the entirety of the Cold War no US ambassador to the UN spoke aggressively and disrespectfully to the Soviet representative as Nikki Haley speaks to the Russian ambassador. During the Cold War no American president would have tolerated Nikki Haley. The crazed bitch would have instantly been fired.
The Russian government is captured by delusion if the Russians believe that the US government, in which Nikki Haley is Trump's choice to be America's spokesperson to the world, in which the crazed neoconservative war monger John Bolton is a principal influence over US military and foreign policy, and in which the President himself is under threat of indictment for wanting to normalize relations with Russia, has any prospect of avoiding war.
The best chance of preventing the oncoming war is Russian-Chinese-Iranian unity and a defeat for American arms in a regional context not worth the Washington psychopaths launching of nuclear weapons. Until Washington is effectively resisted, Washington's European vassals, the UN Security Council and the OPCW will stand with Washington. Once Washington experiences a defeat, NATO will dissolve and with this dissolution Washington's ability to threaten other countries will lose its cover and evaporate.
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Apr 21, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Posted by: Paul Cockshott | Apr 20, 2018 6:56:29 PM | 41
Paul Cockshott , Apr 20, 2018 6:56:29 PM | 41
Amazingly BBC newsnight just started preparing viewers for the possibility that there was no sarin attack, and the missile strikes might just have been for show, i plying Trump did it for political reasons. Narrative changing a bit.Anonymous , Apr 21, 2018 2:47:25 AM | 57#Germany's state media senior correspondent (who is in Damascus right now & also visited Douma) on primetime evening news on German television: "#Douma chemical attack is most likely staged. A great many people here seem very convinced."Fran , Apr 21, 2018 2:55:06 AM | 58Karlofi#35 and frances#18
Michael Quinn on Russia Insider is wondering about the same thing too: Tucker Carlson MIA for 2 Days After Exposing Syria Gas Hoax - Deep State Revenge?I too hope he will return soon, he seems to be one of the last sane voices of the msm. Hopefully high viewer rates help to bring him back, but he wouldn't be the first one to vanish from the screen, despite high ratings.
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Apr 21, 2018 | discussion.theguardian.com
wheelbarrow1 , 13 Apr 2018 14:37
Why is the prime minister of the United Kinkdom on the phone discussing whether or not to bomb a Sovereign country with the highly unstable, Donald Trump?I_Wear_Socks , 13 Apr 2018 14:37Can she not make up her own mind? Either she thinks it's the right thing to do or it isn't. Hopefully, the person on the other end of the phone was not Trump but someone with at least half a brain.
Proof, let's have some proof. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Russia is saying it's all a put up job, show us your facts. We are saying, don't be silly, we're British and besides, you may have done this sort of thing before.
It is perfectly possible that the British government manufactured the whole Salisbury thing. We are capable of just as much despicable behavior and murder as the next.
Part of the Great British act's of bravery and heroism in the second world war is the part played by women agents who were parachuted into France and helped organize local resistance groups. Odette Hallowes, Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo are just a few of the many names but they are the best known. What is not generally know is that many agents when undergoing their training in the UK, were given information about the 'D' day landings, the approx time and place. They were then dropped into France into the hands of the waiting German army who captured and tortured and often executed them.
The double agent, who Winston Churchill met and fully approved of the plan was Henri Dericourt, an officer in the German army and our man on the ground in France. Dericourt organized the time and place for the drop off of the incoming agents, then told the Germans. The information about the 'D' day invasion time and place was false. The British fed the agents (only a small number) into German hands knowing they would be captured and the false information tortured out of them.
Source :- 'A Quiet Courage' Liane Jones.
It's a tough old world and we are certainly capable of a Salisbury set-up and god knows what else in Syria.
From The Guardian articles today that I have read on Syria, it makes absolutely clear that if you in any way question the narrative forwarded here, that you are a stupid conspiracy theorist in line with Richard Spencer and other far-right, American nutcases.ChairmanMayTseTung , 13 Apr 2018 14:37A more traditional form of argument to incline people to their way of thinking would be facts. But social pressure to conform and not be a conspiratorial idiot in line with the far-right obviously work better for most of their readers. My only surprise it that position hasn't been linked with Brexit.
Did anyone see the massive canister that was shown on TV repeatedly that was supposed to have been air-dropped and smashed through the window of a house, landed on a bed and failed to go off.MartinSilenus -> ChairmanMayTseTung , 13 Apr 2018 14:36The bed was in remarkable condition with just a few ruffled bedclothes considering it had been hit with a metal object weighing god knows what and dropped from a great height.
"More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate"120Daze , 13 Apr 2018 14:36The Defoliant Agent Orange was used to kill jungles, resulting in light getting through to the dark jungle floors & a massive amount of low bush regrowing, making the finding of Vietcong fighters even harder!
It was sprayed even on American troops, it is a horrible stuff. Still compared to Chlorine poison gas, let alone nerve gases, it is much less terrible. Though the long term effects are pretty horrible.
"Some 45 million liters of the poisoned spray was Agent Orange, which contains the toxic compound dioxin"
http://theconversation.com/agent-orange-exposed-how-u-s-chemical-warfare-in-vietnam-unleashed-a-slow-moving-disaster-84572Who needs facts when you've got opinions? Non more hypocritical than the British. Its what you get when you lie and distort though a willing press, you get found out and then nobody believes anything you say.anymore. The white helmets are a western funded and founded organisation, they are NOT independent they are NOT volunteers, The UK the US and the Dutch fund them to the tune of over $40 million. They are a propaganda dispensing outlet. The press shouldn't report anything they release because it is utterly unable to substantiate ANY of it, there hasn't been a western journalist in these areas for over 4 years so why do the press expect us to believe anything they print? Combine this with the worst and most incompetent Govt this country has seen for decades and all you have is a massive distraction from massive domestic troubles which the same govt has no answers too.LiviaDrusilla -> Bangorstu , 13 Apr 2018 14:36LOL are you having a larf?Dominique2 , 13 Apr 2018 14:32The same organisation that receives millions of quid in funding from USAID?
Whose 'executive director' used to work for USAID?
Who have campaigned for 'no fly zones' (ie US bombing)?
Who are affiliated to the Iranian terrorist group MEK?
Who only happen to run hospitals in 'rebel' held areas?
You have a strange idea of 'politically neutral'. Your 'NGO' are fighting for an Islamist state. Enjoy them.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/sep/01/winston-churchill-shocking-use-chemical-weaponsCaptTroyTempest -> StoneRoses , 13 Apr 2018 14:27""I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," [Winston Churchill] declared in one secret memorandum."
The current condemnation by the international community and international law is good and needs enforcement. But no virtue signalling where there is none.
But we're still awaiting evidence that a chemical attack has been carried out in Douma, aren't we? And if an attack was carried out, by whom. But before these essential points are verified, you feel that a targeted military response is justified. Are you equally keen for some targeted military response for the use of chemical weapons, namely white phosphorus, in Palestine by the Israaeli military? Unlike Douma, the use of these chemical weapons in the occupied territories by the IDF's personnel is well documented. But we haven't attacked them yet. Funny that.CMYKilla , 13 Apr 2018 14:26Instead of "chemicals" why not just firebomb them - you know like we did to entire cities full of women and children in WW2?Tom1982 , 13 Apr 2018 14:24Hamburg 27 July 1943 - 46,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Kassel 22 October 1943 - 9,000 civilians killed 24,000 houses destroyed in a firestorm
Darmstadt 11 September 1944 - 8,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Dresden 13/14th February - 25,000 civilians killed in a firestormObviously we were fighting Nazism and hadn't actually been invaded - and he is fighting Wahhabism and has had major cities overrun...
Maybe if Assad burnt people to death rather than gassing them we would make a statue of him outside Westminster like the one of Bomber Harris?
Remember the tearful Kuwaiti nurse with her heartrending story of Iraqi troops tipping premature babies out of their incubators after the invasion in 1990? The story was published in pretty much every major Western newspaper, massively increased public support for military intervention............................and turned out to be total bullshit.BlutoTheBruto , 13 Apr 2018 14:21Is it too much too ask that we try a bit of collective critical thinking and wait for hard evidence before blundering into a military conflict with Assad; and potentially Putin?
Didn't General Mattis quietly admit at there was no evidence for the alleged Sarin attacks last year by Assad?AwkwardSquad , 13 Apr 2018 14:19Hmmmm.... call me skeptical for not believing it this time around.
Well, this is the sort of stuff that the Israelis would be gagging for. They want Assad neutralised and they are assisting ISIS terrorists on the Golan Heights. They tend to their wounded and send them back across the border to fight Assad. What better than to drag the Americans, Brits and French into the ring to finish him off. Job done eh?dannymega -> fripouille , 13 Apr 2018 14:18Are you sure you are not promoting an Israeli agenda here Jonathan?
Incidentantally what did we in the west do when the Iraqis were gassing the Iranians with nerve agents in the marshes of southern Iraq during the Iran Iraq War? Did we intervene then? No, we didn't we allowed it to happen.
I say stay out it.
Come on frip, you have to admit there was absolutely no motive for Assad's forces to carry out this attack. Why do you think the Guardian and other main stream media outlets are not even considering the possibility the Jihadi rebels staged it to trigger western intervention? I know, I know.. it's all evil Assad killing his own people for no other reason than he likes butchering people... blah blah. The regime change agenda against Syria has been derailed, no amount of false flag attacks can change the facts on the ground.Preshous , 13 Apr 2018 14:18Tucker Carlson of Fox News has it nailed down.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M28aYkLRlm0ChairmanMayTseTung , 13 Apr 2018 14:16More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate vast swathes of Vietnam and in the full knowledge it would be have a catastrophic effect on the health of the inhabitants of those area, Vietnam has by far the highest incidence of liver cancer on the planet.CodeNameTwiglet , 13 Apr 2018 14:15Then more recently we have the deadly depleted uranium from US shells that innocent Iraqis are inhaling as shrill voices denounce Assad.
The Syrian people are heroically resisting and defeating western imperialism. This "civil war" has been nothing but a war for Syrian resources waged by western proxies.So now, In desperation borne out of their impending defeat, the imperialists have staged a chemical attack in a last throw of the dice to gain popular support for an escalation in military intervention. Like military interventions of the past, it is being justified in the name of humanitarian intervention.
But if we have a brief browse of history we can see that US & UK governments have brought only death, misery and destruction on the populations it was supposedly helping. Hands off Syria.
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Apr 20, 2018 | www.rt.com
Britain's strategic relationship with radical Islam goes back decades and continues to this day. There is no more foul a stench than the stench of hypocrisy, and there is no more foul a hypocrisy than the British government painting Bashar al-Assad as a monster when in truth he and the Syrian people have been grappling with a twin-headed monster in the shape of Salafi-jihadi terror and Western imperialism. Both are committed to destroying Syria as an independent, non-sectarian state, and both are inextricably linked.
Author and journalist Mark Curtis charts in detail the contours of this history in his book 'Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam':
" British governments, both Labour and Conservative, have, in pursuing the so-called 'national interest' abroad, colluded for decades with radical Islamic forces, including terrorist organizations. They have connived with them, worked alongside them and sometimes trained and financed them, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives. Governments have done so in often desperate attempts to maintain Britain's global power in the face of increasing weakness in key regions of the world, being unable to unilaterally impose their will and lacking other local allies. Thus the story is intimately related to that of Britain's imperial decline and the attempt to maintain influence in the world. "
As far back as the First World War, when the Middle East began to assume strategic importance in the capitals of Western imperial and colonial powers, the British ruling class went out of its way to identify and recruit loyal local proxies in pursuit of its regional objectives. Britain's relationship with the Arab tribal chief, Ibn Saud, who would go on to establish Saudi Arabia in the early 1930s, began in 1915 with the Darin Pact, demarcating the territory then controlled by Saud as a British protectorate.
The following year, the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans erupted. Begun and inspired by Saud's fierce rival, Sharif Hussein, head of the Hashemite Arab tribe, the revolt was heavily bankrolled and supported by the British – a period immortalized in the exploits of British military agent T E Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia.
But whereas Sharif Hussein was a follower of orthodox Sunni Islam, Ibn Saud adhered to the radical doctrine of Wahhabism, which Winston Churchill was moved to describe as " bloodthirsty " and " intolerant ." Regardless, when it came to its imperial interests there was no tiger upon whose back the British ruling class was not willing to ride during this period, and which, as events have proved, it has not been willing to ride since.
The most egregious example of this policy, one that continues to have ramifications today, was the support provided by the UK to the Afghan mujahideen in the late 1970s and 1980s. The insurgency's objective was the overthrow of Kabul's secular and left-leaning government, whose crime in the eyes of the Islamist insurgency's US and UK sponsors was that it had embraced the social and economic model of Moscow rather than Washington during the first Cold War.
British support for the mujahideen, married to the huge support provided by Washington, was indispensable in the eventual success of these self-styled 'holy warriors' in taking control of a country that had embraced modernity and turning it into a failed state mired in religious oppression, brutality, backwardness and poverty.
Mark Curtis again:
" Britain, along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, covertly supported the resistance to defeat the Soviet occupation of the country. Military, financial and diplomatic backing was given to Islamist forces which, while forcing a Soviet withdrawal, soon organized themselves into terrorist networks ready to strike Western targets. "
While Washington's primary role in channeling military and financial support to the Afghan mujahideen, known as Operation Cyclone , may until have succeeded in overshadowing London's role in this dirty war, declassified British government cabinet papers which were made public in 2010 and reported in the UK media make grim reading.
They reveal that three weeks after Soviet forces arrived in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government in Kabul, struggling to deal with an insurgency that had broken out in the countryside, the Thatcher government was planning to supply military aid to the " Islamic resistance ." A confidential government memo provides a chilling insight into the insanity that passed for official policy: " We trust the Western leaders are prepared for the enormous beneficial possibilities that could just possibly open up if the Afghan rebellion were to succeed. "
It will be recalled that out of the ensuing collapse of Afghanistan emerged the Taliban, under whose rule the country was turned into a vast militant jihadist school and training camp. Many of the most notorious Islamist terrorists began their careers there, fighting the Soviets and then later broadening out their activities to other parts of the region and wider world. In this regard, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda loom large.
Other notorious names from the world of Salafi-jihadism for whom Afghanistan proved indispensable include the Jordanian Abu al-Zarqawi, who founded Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) during the US-UK occupation, an organization that would over time morph into ISIS.
Abdelhakim Belhaj and other Libyan Islamists cut their jihadist teeth in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Returning to Libya, they formed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in the eastern city of Benghazi. Though the group may have been disbanded in 2010, having failed to topple Gaddafi despite repeated attempts to assassinate the Libyan leader with, it's been claimed , the support of Britain's MI6, former members of the LIFG, including Belhaj, were important actors in the 2011 Libyan uprising.
By way of a reminder, the uprising in Libya started in Benghazi and would not have succeeded without the air support it received from NATO. Britain's then prime minister, David Cameron, was key in pushing for that air support and the sanction of the UN under the auspices of Security Council Resolution 1973. Though protecting civilians was central in wording of this UNSC resolution, it was shamefully distorted to justify regime change, culminating in Gaddafi's murder by the 'rebels.'
Staying with the LIFG, in the wake of the Manchester suicide-bomb attack in May 2017, which left 23 people dead and 500 injured, the fact that the bomber, a young Libyan by the name of Salman Abedi, was the son of a former member of the LIFG, did not receive anything like the media attention it should have at the time.
Manchester, England is home to the largest Libyan community in Britain, and there is strong evidence to suggest that when the Libyan uprising broke out MI6 facilitated the ability of Libyan Islamists in Britain to travel to Libya to participate in the fighting. Among them was Salman Abedi, who it is thought received military training in the country before being allowed to return to the UK thereafter.
This brings us on to Syria and, as with Libya, the question of how so many British Muslims have been able to travel from the UK to Syria via Turkey to take part in the anti-Assad insurgency since 2011? It also brings into sharp focus a policy that has veered between the ludicrous and the reckless.
Emblematic of the former was ex-prime minister David Cameron's claim , which he made during a 2015 Commons debate over whether the Royal Air Force should engage in air strikes against ISIS in Syria, that fighting as part of the Syrian were 70,000 moderates.
As for the recklessness of Britain's actions in Syria, look no further than the country's recent participation in the illegal missile strikes that were carried out in conjunction with the US and France, justified on the basis of as yet unproven allegations that Syrian government forces had carried out a chemical weapons attack on Douma, just outside Damascus. The only beneficiaries of such actions by the Western powers are Salafi-jihadist groups such as ISIS (whom it was later reported took advantage of the missile strike to mount a short-lived offensive), Al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Islam.
The latter of those groups, Jaysh al-Islam, is a Saudi proxy. It was the dominant group in Douma and throughout Eastern Ghouta until the district's liberation by the Syrian Army and its allies with Russian support.
Given the deep and longstanding ties between London and Riyadh; given the fact, reported towards the end of 2017, that British military personnel were embedded in a training role with Saudi forces in Yemen; given the news that a British special forces sergeant was killed in northern Syria at the end of March this year while embedded with the Kurds, revealing for the first time that British troops were operating in the country on the ground – given all that, the question of who else British special forces and military personnel may be embedded with in Syria is legitimate.
In the context of the British state's long and sordid history when it comes to riding the back of radical Islam in pursuit of its strategic objectives, readers will doubtless draw their own conclusions.
Read more
- Did an ISIS ringleader receive British taxpayer money?
- Boris Johnson throws support behind Saudi prince accused of Yemen human rights abuses
- Hotel Intercontinental siege – is Kabul falling?
John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1
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Apr 19, 2018 | www.unz.com
In 2004 I published an article in the journal, Middle East Policy that was entitled "Drinking the Koolaid." The article reviewed the process by which the neocon element in the Bush Administration seized control of the process of policy formation and drove the United States in the direction of invasion of Iraq and the destruction of the apparatus of the Iraqi state. They did this through manipulation of the collective mental image Americans had of Iraq and the supposed menace posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Not all the people who participated in this process were neocon in their allegiance but there were enough of them in the Bush Administration to dominate the process. Neoconism as it has evolved in American politics is a close approximation of the imperialist political faction that existed in the time of President William McKinley and the Spanish-American War. Barbara Tuchman described this faction well in "The Proud Tower."
Such people, then and now, fervently believe in the Manifest Destiny of the United States as mankind's best hope of a utopian future and concomitantly in the responsibility of the United States to lead mankind toward that future. Neocons believe that inside every Iraqi, Filipino or Syrian there is an American waiting to be freed from the bonds of tradition, local culture and general backwardness. For people with this mindset the explanation for the continuance of old ways lies in the oppressive and exploitative nature of rulers who block the "progress" that is needed. The solution for the imperialists and neocons is simple. Local rulers must be removed as the principal obstacle to popular emulation of Western and especially American culture and political forms. In the run up to the invasion of Iraq I was often told by leading neocon figures that the Muslims and particularly the Iraqis had no culture worth keeping and that once we had created new facts, (a Karl Rove quote) these people would quickly abandon their old ways and beliefs as they sought to become something like Americans.
This notion has one major flaw. It is not necessarily correct. Often the natives are willing to fight you long and hard to retain their own ways. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War the US acquired the Philippine Islands and sought to make the islands American in all things. The result was a terrible war against Filipino nationalists who did not want to follow the example of the "shining city on a hill." No, the "poor fools" wanted to go their own way in their own way. The same thing happened in Iraq after 2003. The Iraqis rejected occupation and American "reform" of their country and a long and bloody war ensued.
The neocons believe so strongly that America must lead the world and mankind forward that they accept the idea that the achievement of human progress justifies any means needed to advance that goal. In the case of the Iraq invasion the American people were lectured endlessly about the bestialities of Saddam's government. The bestialities were impressive but the constant media display of these horrors was not enough to persuade the American people to accept war. From the bestialities meme the neocons moved on to the WMD meme. The Iraqi government had a nuclear weapons program before the First Gulf War but that program had been thoroughly destroyed in the inspection regime that followed Iraq's defeat and surrender. This was widely known in the US government because US intelligence agencies had cooperated fully with the international inspectors in Iraq and in fact had sent the inspectors to a long list of locations at which the inspectors destroyed the program. I was instrumental in that process.
After 9/11 the US government knew without any doubt that the Iraqi government did not have a nuclear weapons program, but that mattered not at all to the neocons. As Paul Wolfowitz infamously told the US Senate "we chose to use the fear of nuclear weapons because we knew that would sell." Once that decision was made an endless parade of administration shills appeared on television hyping the supposed menace of Iraqi nuclear weapons. Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were merely the most elevated in position of the many vendors of the image of the "mushroom shaped cloud."
And now we have the case of Syria and its supposed chemical weapons and attacks. After the putative East Gouta chemical attack of 2013, an OPCW program removed all the chemical weapons to be found in Syria and stated its belief that there were no more in the country. In April of 2017 the US-Russian de-confliction process was used to reach agreement on a Syrian Air Force strike in the area of Khan Sheikoon in southern Idlib Province. This was a conventional weapons attack and the USAF had an unarmed reconnaissance drone in the area to watch the strike go in against a storage area. The rebel run media in the area then claimed the government had attacked with the nerve gas Sarin, but no proof was ever offered except film clips broadcast on social media. Some of the film clips from the scene were ludicrous. Municipal public health people were filmed at the supposed scene standing around what was said to be a bomb crater from the "sarin attack." Two public health men were filmed sitting on the lip of the crater with their feet in the hole. If there had been sarin residue in the hole they would have quickly succumbed to the gas. No impartial inspection of the site was ever done, but the Khan Sheikoon "gas attack" has become through endless repetition a "given" in the lore of the "constant Syrian government gas attacks against their own civilians."
On the 4th of April it is claimed that the Syrian Government, then in the process of capturing the town of Douma caused chlorine gas to be dropped on the town killing and wounding many. Chlorine is not much of a war gas. It is usually thought of as an industrial chemical, so evidently to make the story more potent it is now suggested that perhaps sarin was also used.
No proof that such an attack occurred has been made public. None! The Syrian and Russian governments state that they want the site inspected. On the 15th of April US Senator Angus King (I) of Maine told Jake Tapper on SOTU that as of that date the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had not been given any proof by the IC or Trump Administration that such an attack had occurred. "They have asserted that it did" he said.
The US, France and the UK struck Syria with over a hundred cruise missiles in retaliation for this supposed attack but the Administration has not yet provided any proof that the Syrian attack took place.
I am told that the old neocon crew argued as hard as possible for a disabling massive air and missile campaign intended to destroy the Syrian government's ability to fight the mostly jihadi rebels. John Bolton, General (ret.) Jack Keane and many other neocons argued strongly for this campaign as a way to reverse the outcome of the civil war. James Mattis managed to obtain President Trump's approval for a much more limited and largely symbolic strike but Trump was clearly inclined to the neocon side of the argument. What will happen next time?
Colonel W. Patrick Lang is a retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces (The Green Berets). He served in the Department of Defense both as a serving officer and then as a member of the Defense Senior Executive Service for many years
Chet Roman , April 19, 2018 at 5:15 am GMTThe most important part of this article on neocons and their policies is what was never mentioned: Israel. While superficially the neocons may claim they believe in the Manifest Destiny of the United States to impose American democracy on other cultures, the truth is that below the superficial is a deep and unquestioning obedience to further Zionist policies and the promotion of Israel über alles. Syria is a prime example of this and any article on U.S. policies regarding regime change or bombing Syria that leaves out a mention of Israeli influence is all foreplay and nothing else and just about as satisfying.HooperHooper , April 19, 2018 at 5:18 am GMT@Carlton MeyerWally , April 19, 2018 at 5:25 am GMTI understand your point, but Col. Lang's statement of acquired is correct. The USA "acquired" the Phillipine islands as a result of the treaty ending the Spanish-American war. There was a following military occupation and war against nationalist rebels, but that doesn't make his wording incorrect.
But who are the "Neo-Cons"? Who is their loyalty to?joseph51 , April 19, 2018 at 7:04 am GMTThe neocons have a right to their opinion and their desired world order, just like anyone else. What they DO NOT have, is the right to perpetrate WARS OF AGRESSION, which include both War Crimes an Crimes Against Humanity under its purview, to reach those goals. Under our Constitution and system of government ONLY Congress is legally authorized to declare war on another nation. Congress has NOT declared war on the sovereign nation of Syria, there is no self defense issue here and such an attack has not been approved by the United Nations so, IT IS NOT UP TO THE PRESIDENT AND SOME GROUP OF HIS ADVISORS.Ronald Thomas West , Website April 19, 2018 at 7:25 am GMTThose in the military have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution. You are not obligated to obey obviously criminal orders, in fact you are obligated to defend against all those violating our Constitution. By God, do your duty.
Where is Congress? They should be making sure that these criminals do not exercise authority that is reserved to Congress. By not preventing these crimes the military and Congress become accomplices and accessories to the most heinous crime defined by mankind WAR OF AGRESSION.
Any and all those in authority who ordered past attacks and or order future attacks are guilty of WAGING AGGRESSIVE WAR. Any one who assisted in any way are accomplices, and/or accessories to the crimes and are equally guilty and subject to arrest and prosecution without time limit. The excuse of following orders will not be accepted.
If the neocons actually carry out the criminal act of "a disabling massive air and missile campaign intended to destroy the Syrian government's ability to fight the mostly jihadi rebels," don't be surprised if the Russians and Chinese vaporize the United States.
Randal , April 19, 2018 at 7:44 am GMTthe putative East Gouta chemical attack of 2013
I have to wonder why, with the known facts of this 2013 attack in the public domain, our 'other IC' never goes there except with the most vague allusions. Here is the 2013 attack in known detail:
https://ronaldthomaswest.com/2018/04/15/what-can-be-known-vs-what-will-be-known/
I'm no fan of 'Realpolitik', let the chips fall as they should. In fact, the reality of 2013 should inform us of the reality of 2018, and where to bring the pressure to pop the abscess – before the abscess becomes WWIII
Great to see Colonel Lang added to the list of Unz writers. His direct expertise and experience in ME military and intel matters are unsurpassed, and as someone who has been intentionally excluded from the mainstream media because of his determination to express inconvenient truths that the powerful would prefer remain unsaid, he fits perfectly into the Unz mission statement: "A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media."Realist , April 19, 2018 at 8:19 am GMTAfter the putative East Gouta chemical attack of 2013, an OPCW program removed all the chemical weapons to be found in Syria and stated its belief that there were no more in the country.
Let's recall whilst considering this point that the OPCW is not some anti-American bureaucracy uninfluenced by US power. Here is what happened to an OPCW leader who crossed the US neocons:
"We can't accept your management style," Bolton told Bustani in 2002, as Bustani recounted to The Intercept.
"You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you," he reportedly continued. After a pause, Bolton reportedly said, "We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York."
Bustani was taken aback by Bolton's directness, but did not back down, according to The Intercept.
Bustani eventually was forced to step down after the US convinced its allies in the organization to rally against him, according to The Times. He was forced out by a stunning vote of 48 to 7 and 43 abstentions.
If the OPCW appears to be cooperating suspiciously with US objectives on an issue, that's credible. The contrary, not so much.
On that note, let's also recall that the OPCW inspected one of the main targets of the recent US action, claimed by the US and its collaborators to be an active chemical weapons site, the Barzeh research centre, in 2017:
He said it's "totally incorrect" that chemical weapons were being developed there. "The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) visited here and didn't report anything wrong with this place."
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CBS News looked into the OPCW report from Barzeh and it noted the Syrians had delayed the visit for security concerns, but didn't find any red flags.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/syria-airstrikes-brazeh-complex-damascus-2018-04-14/
@WhiteWolfMishra , April 19, 2018 at 8:27 am GMTIn the days of dubya at least some effort was put into the false flags.
The shallowness and insouciance of Americans has rendered that superfluous.
While I certainly agree with the gist of this essay, the following quotation is news to me and I'd appreciate a citation–I can't find it anywhere.English Outsider , April 19, 2018 at 9:05 am GMTPaul Wolfowitz infamously told the US Senate "we chose to use the fear of nuclear weapons because we knew that would sell."
I have long been a fan of Colonel Lang's stand against the current neocon policy in the Middle East. Here I find the most authoritative account of the thinking behind the Syrian disaster I have seen.SolontoCroesus , April 19, 2018 at 9:09 am GMTI am still puzzled by the support given by our European and UK politicians to this destructive policy. Is it merely a matter of catching the crumbs from the neocon's table? Our politicians surely can't think they're exceptional too. Though in a way one hopes they might be – I no longer believe that those politicians represent the thinking of the great mass of people in Europe and the UK.
@Chet RomanSolontoCroesus , April 19, 2018 at 9:23 am GMTLang spelled that out in "Drinking the Koolaid," the 2004 article mentioned in the first sentence.
He wrote:
" . . .single-minded intensity in pursuing his goals was nothing new for [Douglas] Feith. In July 1996, he had been a principal author of a study prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This paper advocated abrogation of the Oslo accords and the launch of a new regional balance-of-power scheme based on American-Israeli military dominance with a subsidiary military role for Turkey and Jordan . The study was produced by the "Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies" (IASPS), a Jerusalem-based Likud-party-linked think tank, and was called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." In it, Feith and company wrote,
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq -- an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right -- as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
The study-group leader was Richard Perle . Other members of the team included Charles Fairbanks Jr., a longtime friend of Paul Wolfowitz since their student days together at the University of Chicago; and David Wurmser , an American Enterprise Institute Middle East fellow, and his wife, Meyrav Wurmser , who headed the Washington, DC office of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Her boss in that group was a retired Israeli intelligence officer, Yigal Carmon.
On July 8, 1996, Richard Perle presented the "Clean Break" document to Netanyahu, who was visiting Washington. Two days later, the Israeli prime minister unveiled the document as his own regional foreign-policy design in a speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
http://www.mepc.org/journal/middle-east-policy-archives/drinking-kool-aid?print
Regulars on Unz forum regularly mention "A Clean Break," but noting the "regional balance-of-power scheme based on American-Israeli military dominance with a subsidiary military role for Turkey and Jordan, " and given the amount of money and military aid US taxpayers provide to Israel, why is this group hiring, training and arming "moderate rebels" to "foil Syria's regional ambitions" rather than carrying out the mission themselves?
Also, and based on comments by US Congressman Steven Russell (R-OK) (among others) in appearances on C Span, where praise is lavished on Jordan's king Abdullah, it appears Jordan is still on board the aging ship Clean Break , tho Turkey is threatening mutiny.
The same actors -- including the sociopathic Michael Ledeen– of this neocon cabal have been reading the same script from the run-up to war with Iraq
to the fulfillment of their obsession with attacking Iran:
Notice that fifteen years on, the neocon criminal gang has added new, younger members, i.e. Richard Goldberg and Michaela Dodge. Goldberg is fanatically pro-Israel from his Jewish day school primary school to his anti-BDS activities in Illinois government and anti-Iran achievements in US senate.
@Carlton MeyerEliteCommInc. , April 19, 2018 at 10:04 am GMTDisagree because Jimmy Dore made a mistake in heaping so much praise on Sache without knowing who he was. In my opinion, Jeffrey Sachs's appearance on MSNBC is a smokescreen, political cover to exonerate the Deep State, banister predators and Israel firsters from complicity in the destruction of Syria. Sachs was a leading actor, together with George Soros, Paul Wolfowitz and Jonathan Bush, brother-in-law of the late, sainted Barbara Bush, in the Rape of Russia in the Yeltsin years.
h/t The Saker, complete w/ transcript: https://thesaker.is/the-rape-of-russia-saker-blog-exclusive-interview/
Our southern neighbors are the largest threat to the US than any Middle Eastern State.Seamus Padraig , April 19, 2018 at 10:05 am GMTI will continue to contend to drop the label "neoconservative" because it is inaccurate. What we have are those who desire intervention for political and mercantilism *economic" ambitions -- interventionists.
-- -- -- -- -- -- –" I was often told by leading neocon figures that the Muslims and particularly the Iraqis had no culture worth keeping and that once we had created new facts, (a Karl Rove quote) these people would quickly abandon their old ways and beliefs as they sought to become something like Americans. This notion has one major flaw. It is not necessarily correct. Often the natives are willing to fight you long and hard to retain their own ways. In the aftermath of the Spanish-American War the US acquired the Philippine Islands and sought to make the islands American in all things."
I am unclear why you are equivocating here. It is entirely incorrect as demonstrated throughout the region repeatedly.
@Chet Romanjilles dykstra , April 19, 2018 at 10:12 am GMTTrue. I love Col. Lang's blog and have followed it for years now. He's really good at military strategy, and–as a ME specialist–is very helpful in analyzing and predicting events in Syria, Iraq, etc. But the main thing that's missing at his blog ('Sic Semper Tyrannis') is any analysis of Israel's role in this. There's no mention of the Oded Yinon plan, or the Clean Break memo, or the 'Pearl Harbor-type event' paper. And while Lang is very good at pointing out the absurdity of Washington's statements relative to reality, he's not so good at untangling propaganda from what really motivates the highest-level people who are behind all of this . Hint: it's not 'democracy promotion'.
I wonder if the neocons have any idea about forward. Their forward for me is just world domination, that what Franklin Roosevelt already tried, but what failed miserably. In 1946 the Soros then, Bernard Baruch, in vain pleaded for a world government, that is, the USA governing the world. Stalin and Mao tse Tung had other ideas.Ivan K. , Website April 19, 2018 at 10:18 am GMTWe now have Putin, the Chinese government, India, Iran, IS, the other BRICS countries, I think the majority of Muslims, most S and Middle American countries, with other ideas. Even on German sites debate exists on the continuing USA occupation. Soros' conflict with Hungary is there for anyone to see.
Fool Macron states that the EU must have more power, to destroy increasing nationalism. He does not see that with more EU power nationalism rises. Shortly before the Brexit referendum someone in Britain said 'they even interfere with vacuum cleaners'.
You're just wasting your nerves, and time. Just looking at what is done rather than what is being said, I see the world geopolitically moving in a splendid direction, with practically enlightened leaders in the major three countries. I see a false flag that had cost no lives, Syria becoming invincible to both NATO and Israel – a dream come true, I also see Russia firmly establishing itself on the Med for a first time, a forging of peace between the two Koreas after 60 years. All those are results to which the White House under Trump crucially contributes. (*)iffen , April 19, 2018 at 11:34 am GMTIn the rest of the world, we can see improvement in the living conditions in most parts of the world unparalleled in history.
The biggest problem are the European & American chattering and fear-mongering classes, imperialists and anti-imperialists alike. Surprisingly, they look like two sides of a same coin. On his website, Mr. Patrick Lang speaks about Mr. Trump, his president, in the most pejorative terms, while he has the highest praises for Collin Powell, who steadily and with a pronounced servility served the neocons. It was exactly Mr. Lang that, by serving Collin Powell, assisted the neocon dominance in the White House, and, among else, the Iraq disaster. Our greatest enemy demons are those inside ourselves.
(*) Trump's critics want to have their cake and eat it: Trump is wrong because of his stupendous warmongering, and by being such "a moron" as to be disastrous for his mad plans. Occam's Razor applied to those two extraordinary observations points to the solid likelihood they are illusions. Illusion-making would be consistent with what I know about DJT personally anda fine a tit-for-tat to what the msm do to him. When surrounded by open mouths of beasts, throw them a bone or two.
@Chet RomanJake , April 19, 2018 at 11:37 am GMTThe most important part of this article on neocons and their policies is what was never mentioned: Israel.
Yeah, one has to willfully ignore the overwhelming historical evidence of the perfidious Jewish cabal dragging TR and his "conscripts" by the nose up San Juan Hill.
If the Neocons would follow the example of (atheist or perhaps actual demon worshipping, socialist/Marxist, drug addict, bisexual) Jones and his main female inner circle and its largely black male inner circle of enforcers and also drink the kool-aid and die, then we'd be happy they were making a batch.iffen , April 19, 2018 at 11:43 am GMTThe world would become safer and more sane.
@RandalSeamus Day , April 19, 2018 at 12:20 pm GMTGreat to see Colonel Lang added to the list of Unz writers.
Yes, excellent addition.
@Michael Kennyfor-the-record , April 19, 2018 at 12:30 pm GMTTrump has made a complete mess of this and "next time" thus inevitably means something much more solid. He has dug himself deeper into the Russiagate hole and there's only one way out. Since Putin is totally bogged down in Syria, there's no hurry on "next time". All Putin can do is sit and wait for it to happen. Trump will probably have to act before the midterms.
I think this whole charade served another purpose. And Nikki Haley's comments added to it ("we will never be friends with Russia and will we smack Russia whenever we want"). It allowed the Russians to start thinking the unthinkable. Unleashing the nuclear genie and using MAD to end the madness. I believe it will create a ramping up of nuclear forces in Russia. I don't believe the option was really on the table until the false flag and the completely irrational and unhinged response from the West. Preceded by the other ludicrous Skripal affair which the U.S. and other Western countries accepted as true and evicted Russian officials based on it. I think in the final hours before the missile strikes of last Friday it was a somber mood among Russian military planners and there was a a begrudging willingness to consider the unthinkable nuclear option. Now I think it is fully on the table and Russian planners will start thinking and visualizing about scenarios and will make its future use more real and thus much easier to undertake. In fact, merely thinking about and visualizing about scenarios will create an excitement which will animate their future decision. If the Punjabi Clemson accounting major, Nimrata Randhawa, is correct and will not be friends with Russia and smack them whenever "we" want, you'd better get right with God and live your final days virtuously because the end of the world as we know it is at hand.
@RandalMiro23 , April 19, 2018 at 12:41 pm GMTRegarding Barzah/Barzeh, here is the actual OPCW document dated 23 March 2018 referring to the November 2017 inspection:
In accordance with paragraph 11 of Council decision EC-83/DEC.5, the second round of inspections at the Barzah and Jamrayah facilities of the SSRC was concluded on 22 November 2017. The results of the inspections were reported as an addendum (EC-87/DG.15/Add.1, dated 28 February 2018) to the report entitled "Status of Implementation of Executive Council Decision EC-83/DEC.5 (dated 11 November 2016)" (EC-87/DG.15, dated 23 February 2018). The analysis of samples taken during the inspections did not indicate the presence of scheduled chemicals in the samples, and the inspection team did not observe any activities inconsistent with obligations under the Convention during the second round of inspections at the Barzah and Jamrayah facilities
https://www.opcw.org/fileadmin/OPCW/EC/88/en/ec88dg01_e_.pdf
Interestingly, this document is not particularly easy to find, for some (no doubt innocent) reason it has not (yet?) been included among the list of "Progress Reports" on the OPCW site:
https://www.opcw.org/special-sections/syria/related-official-documents/
Carlton Meyer , Website April 19, 2018 at 12:45 pm GMTSuch people, then and now, fervently believe in the Manifest Destiny of the United States as mankind's best hope of a utopian future and concomitantly in the responsibility of the United States to lead mankind toward that future. Neocons believe that inside every Iraqi, Filipino or Syrian there is an American waiting to be freed from the bonds of tradition, local culture and general backwardness.
So the Neocons want to better the lives of Iraqis, Filipinos and Syrians by "introducing" them to the American way of life?? – Such kind and well meaning people.
The current US is rather like a cross country trip in bad weather. The vehicle is bogged down in deep mud, giving the driver and occupants two options 1) Look out the windows and say, "We're bogged down in deep mud. What are we going to do?" 2) Refuse to look out the windows and say, "There's something wrong with this vehicle. Can we fix the engine?"
The US as a society, isn't going anywhere until it can face reality, and have an open and frank public debate about the Israeli/Zionist subversion of US institutions.
@HooperHooperDESERT FOX , April 19, 2018 at 12:48 pm GMTYour view is a common myth. Why do people assume the Philippines belonged to Spain, who could give it away? Anyway, by the time the American Army arrived, there was an established Filipino government and a large regular army that was running the nation. Just a few tiny pockets of Spanish troops remained waiting for rescue. After the Americans saved them, they attacked and invaded the Philippines, fighting the regular Army for over a year until it was destroyed, then the resulting insurgency. The US military conquered the Philippines beginning with the bloody "Battle of Manila".
The fact is that Israel and the dual citizen ziocons aka neocons control the U.S. gov and proof of this is that Israel did the attack on the WTC on 911 and got away with it, and also did the attack on the USS LIBERTY and got away with that, and numerous other subversive things that would take a book to document, and got away with it all.Seamus Padraig , April 19, 2018 at 1:05 pm GMTIsrael is destroying America.
@MishraZ-man , April 19, 2018 at 1:09 pm GMTLang may have been loosely paraphrasing here. The version I'm familiar with is:
"The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason," Wolfowitz was quoted as saying in a Pentagon transcript of an interview with Vanity Fair.
Inter alia: https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-05-30-wolfowitz-iraq_x.htm
@Chet RomanOzymandias , April 19, 2018 at 1:16 pm GMTThe Zionist Entity, the great albatross around America's neck. In a way it was fine that W. Patrick Lang did not mention the Zionist Entity by name. It's smart not to mention it all the time as it can be like 'beating a dead horse' among other things . Not mentioning it directly and just saying Neocon deflects the accusation of the anti-'S' label but in a subtle manner associates Zionism with Neocons, which can be a more persuasive way to make the point without screaming, like me (lol), that it's the same thing.
Patrick Lang , Website April 19, 2018 at 1:33 pm GMT" administration shills appeared on television hyping the supposed menace of Iraqi nuclear weapons. Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "I propose that international politics would be greatly clarified if we were to place a 'CFR' next to the name of every member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
@Carlton Meyeranonymous [340] Disclaimer , April 19, 2018 at 2:01 pm GMTSpain ceded the Philippine Islands to the US at the end of the Spanish American War.
@Seamus PadraigMike Whitney , April 19, 2018 at 2:04 pm GMTIf so, that's awfully sloppy, even for a paraphrase, and in no way a legitimate use of quotation marks.
I'm very glad to see Colonel Pat Lang writing for the Unz review. His own website–Sic Semper Tyrannis– is one of the best, most informative sites on the internet. It is "must read" for anyone who wants to follow national security issues, Syria, Ukraine and beyond.SolontoCroesus , April 19, 2018 at 2:52 pm GMTLang doesn't mince words or pull his punches. And his analysis is never short of brilliant. This is really a great addition for the Unz Review. Good work, Ron and a hearty "Welcome" to Colonel Lang!
@SvigorWally , April 19, 2018 at 3:06 pm GMTre:
"This is what you get when you have too much Jewish influence over opinion. Friedlander says "regime change never works," but obviously it does, sometimes, like in Japan and Germany after WWII. "
WWII actions against Japan and Germany were not "regime changes" that "worked," they were total wars of destruction, conquest and genocide of the German people, in the case of Germany, which lost ~10 of its pop. while Japan lost ~5%.
Japan has recovered, to a certain extent, probably because Japan's adversary was not Jews. Germany is still a fully occupied and de-culturalized state. Witness, for example, the Thompson article where Hindemann is compelled to discuss "Nazis" totally out of context.
@jilles dykstraanon [228] Disclaimer , April 19, 2018 at 3:38 pm GMTAnother hasbarist in disguise has spoken. "To themselves" only after satisfying the demands of "that shitty little country". http://www.codoh.com
"I was often told by leading neocon figures that the Muslims and particularly the Iraqis had no culture worth keeping and that once we had created new facts, (a Karl Rove quote) these people would quickly abandon their old ways and beliefs as they sought to become something like Americans. This notion has one major flaw. It is not necessarily correct."SolontoCroesus , April 19, 2018 at 3:41 pm GMTOnly the meanest culture -free bastards can get away with this as a policy statement . It is millions times worse when someone condones it by saying " It is not necessarily correct"
@Svigoranon [228] Disclaimer , April 19, 2018 at 3:44 pm GMTThat argument rests on assumptions that I consider ugly, a-historical, and counterproductive. What was done to Germany and Japan -- and to the former Ottoman empire as well as Iran -- from ~1907 'til today, was precipitated by some of the world's greatest psychopaths. They are still at large. THAT is the problem, not "HBD."
@SolontoCroesusSolontoCroesus , April 19, 2018 at 5:16 pm GMTOne of the reasons Tom Friedman supplied for his support to Iraq war among many similar excuses, was the support Saddam offered to the suicide bombers. One of the reason the terrorist one day may think is the support given by the Zionists to the bombers attacker gentile politicians .
@Chet RomanEliteCommInc. , April 19, 2018 at 5:43 pm GMTCome to think of it, I mostly agree with this comment: Col. Lang conflated American operating principle of "Manifest Destiny" with the zionist / neoconservative ideology (psychopathology).
imo the process is more subtle: Manifest Destiny/Anglos and zionist/neoconservatives share mythological roots in Abrahamism, which posits that the "chosen" have a lock on truth, morality and god, and that they have the right and obligation to destroy anyone who fails to subscribe to that truth and their overlordship of it -- Evangelical Christians and Anglicans hold this concept fast.
The zionist twist on this is twofold: First, Jews believe they are the ordained by god to be in charge; Jews have been chosen by god to "teach the world ethics, to drag the rest of the world kicking and screaming to behave morally." http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/96037069.html Apparently, some Jews really believe this.
Second, but the larger zionist agenda is to establish Jews as a hegemonic if not global imperial power from a base in Israel, and they are using USA treasure, political and military power as its tool to achieve what are, ultimately, Jewish goals.
To be sure, US policymakers, elites, and tens of thousands of ordinary citizens willingly and/or unwittingly subscribe to a similar predatory and dominating agenda. But if (when?) Jewish zionists achieve their goals, US will be discarded like toilet paper.
It's useful to recognize that the early leaders of the zionist movement -- Herzl, Nordau, Pinsker and others -- recognized early on that Jews needed the support of a major power to achieve their goals, and solicited that support from the German kaiser, the Ottoman sultan, and the British.
When Chaim Weizmann's activities to gain British support were successful, the same zionist Jews who had earlier petitioned Germany and Ottoman turned violently against those same powers and brought about their destruction. Germany's destruction was maneuvered in short order; the destruction of the Ottoman empire successor states has taken longer.
Maybe those Arabs aren't so dumb after all.
@SvigorPatrick Lang , Website April 19, 2018 at 5:44 pm GMTthere are plenty of interventionists on the press for democracy and "capitalism" as cause for stabilizing regions that are not Jews or all that active in Zionists policies.
The desire to regime change in North Korea and parts of Africa are not all that beneficial to Zionist ambitions. I am not all convinced that Israel is a democracy. But it's clear that neither Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan are going to raving democratic capitalist states – every. Muslim faith precludes such a system. even if said states did embrace democracy -- there is no evidence and would in all likelihood not reflect what exists in the US. Because what exists in the US is founded on a particular history and environment and inter-relational dynamics.
The grand narrative they advance would be attractive as policy even minus the existence of Israel.
-- Cutting off nonsense at the pass: I do think Israel has a right to exist. –
@Seamus Padraigjilles dykstra , April 19, 2018 at 5:57 pm GMTAh, you want me to propagandize for your preferred positions. You want me to scream every day that the JEWS did it. You are supposed to be able to read between the lines and understand the truth of things. You are more of sa simpleton than I had thought. You should stay off my blog.
@SolontoCroesusRobinG , April 19, 2018 at 6:06 pm GMTThere was neither regime change nor unconditional surrender in Japan. Germany was destroyed, physically and politically. Indoctrination of the Germans with their guilt for two world wars, and the murder of six million jews, goes on to this day. But even this indoctrination is crumbling.
Many Germans do not see how the country they live in, that should just have a defensive army, cooperates in wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Many Germans see how the poor jews who survived the holocaust treat the Palestinians. Germany now is going to buy Predators:
https://kenfm.de/keine-kampfdrohnen/
Trans 'No drones for battle'.
@SolontoCroesusAnon [673] Disclaimer , April 19, 2018 at 6:23 pm GMTOkay, Sachs has corpses in his closet. And yes, Dore is dopey. (Sachs has been on MSNBC many times. It was no mistake.) But, IMO, take gold where you find it . limited hangout or not.
If your adversary speaks some truth, that doesn't make it a lie. Plus, you're not going to get every angle covered n every clip. The fact that he called out US covert fomentation of regime-change in Syria makes this golden.
Here's the clip without Jimmy Dore's interruptions, only 5 min.
Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs on Syria
If you split the difference between two extremes, you end up pleasing no one and being attacked by both sides. Democracy is a flower that smells sweet and ends up in the pipe of every crackpot loon in history. In this world, facts and reality matter. Ideology is the shortcut that retards use to move the masses towards easy solutions that make life hard.Patrick Lang , Website April 19, 2018 at 6:24 pm GMTBlood and religion form bonds. Ideas just make the stupid angry and the smart embrace theories and abandon reliable methods. New ideas can be beneficial or they can be fair, they rarely can be both. Without winners there are no losers. Unless you benefit from work, there is no incentive to do it.
There are no simple solutions. There are no complex problems. Problems can always be simplified by division and parsing. Solutions can only be simplified to avoid the hard facts and avoid actually solving them.
What has any of this have to do with the subject? These are the things you need to bring to the table.
Discussing this issue will lead to nothing but overly emotional hype and obfuscation. Using the above can stop the endless appeals to emotionalism that carries the masses away from facts.
@Chet RomanRandal , April 19, 2018 at 6:30 pm GMTI'll say to you what I say to others. I beat up the Zionists both here and in Israel all the time but I am not going to say that all Jews are responsible for the ills of the world. As for the neocons their agenda is much larger than just Zionism.
@English OutsiderTitus I , Website April 19, 2018 at 6:37 pm GMTI am still puzzled by the support given by our European and UK politicians to this destructive policy. Is it merely a matter of catching the crumbs from the neocon's table? Our politicians surely can't think they're exceptional too.
Well clearly the US's European satrapies don't share directly in the US updated Manifest Destiny idea, but the US sphere elites in general are fully indoctrinated in the universalist ideology of internationalist social-liberalism and "democracy"-uber-alles (where "democracy" – whether in Republican, constitutional monarchic or other form – is in reality a kind of managed gerrymander to keep the established and US-favoured elites safely in control and ensure "populists" are excluded by any means necessary), and sees itself as on a mission to promote the spread of US style liberal (managed) "democracy" throughout the world (except where it's currently inconvenient to push it too hard for reasons of temporary expedience, such as in places like Saudi Arabia). There might well be a psychological component akin to Stockholm Syndrome, whereby people like Blair, Macron etc see the power of the US and the US exceptionalist ideology over their countries, know they are subordinate to it, and seek to internalise a wider version of it for themselves so that they can tell themselves that when they are serving Washington's objectives and profiting handsomely thereby, they are actually doing it for their own noble ideals.
Then of course, human beings being human, there are also other self-serving motivations underlying the idealist pretext – collaboration for personal gain with the jewish/Israeli lobby that is hugely powerful in the UK and Europe as well as in the US, military-industrial types wanting to boost the status and budgets of the military, etc. These are the real motivations, as opposed to the legitimising pretext that is the supposedly noble ideal of American exceptionalism or internationalist social liberalism.
Lately the British regime's enthusiasm for the interventionist project seems to be greater even than that of the US regime, for instance.
@Chet Romanannamaria , April 19, 2018 at 6:51 pm GMTThe American Empire is facing a historical junction: does become a mercenary putative force for Zionist Israel or Will the USA priorize its own NATIONAL interests over Israeli. The prize of becoming a Zionist surrogate will mean the progressive deterioration of the American empeirein the Middle East, and the world. America faces severe national debt, decaying infrastructure, and internal social fragmentation. On the other hand Israel is poised to become the ENERGY hub for the European, African, Asian economies,without Israeli OIL supply lines all those economies will be paralyzed. Furthermore American blind,almost irrational support for Israel will mean more dangerous terrorists attacks and more frequent..The Trump presidency is in fact a Neocon presidency, the democratic decision making (war) process is dead, and this Syrian war means that it doesn't matter whom iselected president ultimately AIPAC, Israel, make the final decisions.
@RobinGkemerd , April 19, 2018 at 7:06 pm GMTMore from The Jimmy Dore Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=292&v=_O2TRzA2ezk
I don't know if anyone outside US believes so called "theoretical background"of the neocons that they think US is the pinnacle of the human civilization that they want to export their model to the other places in the world, etc. This is so absurdly stupid is that it is hard to believe anyone would buy it. All of what they do just talks volumes about what they care for: money and power; the rest, as can be understood from their lousy "philosophy", are just details.RobinG , April 19, 2018 at 7:17 pm GMTI also think that their affection to Israel is fake. People in the power positions do not have such dispositions. I am sure there is some genuine idiots among US political class who buys what they actually say but most of them just ride the tide while it is useful for them. I am sure that once Israel loses its usefulness for the ones who actually wield power inside US political class, Israel would also be trashed just like Arab countries they destroyed.
@English Outsiderannamaria , April 19, 2018 at 7:17 pm GMTDon't assume US neocons are calling all the shots. It was Sarkozy (goaded by Zionist Bernard Henri Levy) took the lead to attack Libya. And at least some believe London is still the core of Imperialist aggression.
Yesterday, for the first time, a Russian general pierced this lie on RT when he stated that there was proof that the UK was behind the well-orchestrated and completely staged "gas attacks" in Douma.
Yes, you read that right, he said the UK. Not the US, not Israel, not Saudi Arabia, but the UK. Those of you familiar with my writing know that I am constantly pointing my finger at the City of London for the lies, deception, and wars which dominate the headlines of their propaganda rags."
Crown Bulldog Attacks Syria
https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/crown-bulldog-attacks-syria/
As fort the "[non] thinking of the great mass of people," since when does that matter?
@English OutsiderSolontoCroesus , April 19, 2018 at 8:14 pm GMT"Is it merely a matter of catching the crumbs from the neocon's table? "
-- Correct. The current breed of opportunists operating without any kind of responsibility makes the international corps of political whores-in-charge. These politicians look at the Blairs (a $100 million fortune) and Cheney & Bush (both getting richer with every day) and they know that the opportunisms, however criminal, will be rewarded by the "deciders." The incompetent and sycophantic politicians in the EU/UK governments have zero regards for their citizenry. We can be absolutely sure that there are no idealists among the leading UK politicians in power.
To believe that American ruling class (which is heavily zionized) has any idealistic motivations instead of a rabid drive for money and power is an illusion. The majority of the US politicians are committed to the criminal enterprises, whether local or global, when the enterprises promise a gesheft, which is the only criterion.
@SvigorSvigor , April 19, 2018 at 8:27 pm GMTOK. I understand the basic thing you are saying in #69. I don't get your bit about HBD being the reason regime change won't work wrt Arabs.
WHY will regime change "not work w/ Arabs" ? Is it because Arab states have fewer and less complex political structures and institutions? That surely does not apply to Iran, but then Iran is not Arab (tho many Arabs are in the Iranian population. Thus, Iran is already a more complex culture than USA/Europe is willing to be).
I cannot buy the notion that Arabs as Arabs are biologically capable of lesser civilizational attainment -- different, maybe, but it takes an exceptionalist to claim that civilization A is superior to civilization B, for solely biological reasons.
@RobinGSolontoCroesus , April 19, 2018 at 8:39 pm GMTReading the Wikipedia article on Timber Sycamore, I'm struck by the significance of Sachs' omission; TS is a US program, but the overall effort it's a part of is more of a Sunni Arab project than an American one. Saudi Arabia is providing more money and weapons, Jordan is hosting the effort, Qatar gives money, etc; it's a US-backed Sunni program.
I'm talking about the moral component; I think our Zionist interventionist policies are stupid, not in American interests, and really only serve Zionist interests. but it's not really "our" mess, as Sachs states, so much as a Sunni/Zionist mess.
@Patrick LangJerseyJeffersonian , April 19, 2018 at 9:44 pm GMThmmm.
Glad you made that distinction, between zionists and neocons.
Zionism is just about the most complex -ism on the planet.
Neocons are just what they say they are: Trotskyites in Beltway drag. Trotskyites dominated the Jerusalem Conference in 1979 when GWOT was birthed; G H W Bush did doula duty.
I wonder what the linkage is between Jabotinsky and Trotsky? Both are revolutionaries, both advocate violence. Jabotinsky picked up on that change in Jewish behavior from petitioning from a posture of subservience– shtadlones – to demanding, with arrogance; Netanyahu is his worthy acolyte.
Neocons have some genuine psychopaths among them -- the world would be a better place if an ice axe were wielded in Ledeen's vicinity.
It's consistent with what Ronen Bergman told Brian Williams http://www.nbcnews.com/video/rock-center/46318982#46318982
"Israel has long used assassination against its enemies, "hoping that by taking out individuals, they can alter, change the course of history,"@SvigorThirdeye , April 19, 2018 at 9:56 pm GMTSvigor,
It would be really nice if it were possible to "put this tired, tattered old straw man to bed", but it is not likely to happen. The radical Zionists immediately use criticism of Israel to conflate criticism of Zionism with anti-Semitism. This is made far easier for them by the confusion around "Jewishness" that is deliberately (and conveniently, for their purposes) cultivated; is being a Jew a racial thing, a religious thing, a cultural thing regardless of the individual Jew's adherence to and practice of the tenets of Judaism? This ambiguity opens the door for claims that criticisms of the excesses of radical Zionism are at root leveled against all Jews regardless of their actual beliefs, political behaviors, and their self-perception regarding their roles in the life of the nation. Of course, true anti-Semites do in fact hold all Jews responsible for the actions of rabid Zionists, so everybody "wins".
Except for real flesh and blood Jews, who are individuals with their own agency. My oldest friend is a Jew, I work with Jews, I make classical music with Jews. So I will never buy the blanket condemnation of Jews qua Jews. Do I wish that more American Jews would distance themselves from and be more critical of the "professional Jews" who are in leadership roles at radical Zionist organizations? Yes, but I have some sympathy for why this does not happen. As a historically disparaged minority, albeit with some reasons for that status, the reluctance is self-enforcing; there is a disincentive to talk smack on your "community" for fear of the ostracism, and reputational and career damage that might follow (there is no reasoning with one-issue fanatics, after all).
Look at how blacks who lodge criticism of the behaviors of some in their community make out. Not too well, even when the criticisms are justified, and the ills perpetuated by these criticized behaviors work to the detriment not only of individual blacks, but also to the perception of blacks in general in the wider society.
So I think that Col. Lang is justified in his refusal to tar all Jews with the sins and excesses of some portion of that community. This seems to me to be intellectually and morally correct. Certainly it serves to help put the criticisms of NeoConservatism out there while yet insulating him to a degree from the blanket charges of anti-Semitism. And indeed, the NeoCons are not strictly radical Zionists, and some among them have other motivations behind their actions.
@English OutsiderAnon [425] Disclaimer , April 19, 2018 at 10:31 pm GMTShort answer, F,UK were the world's leading imperial powers before WWII and seek to leverage American military and financial power to restore some degree of imperial power. The Atlantic Charter and the UN Charter were bitter pills for the old empires. France sought to override the UN Charter by force in Vietnam and Algeria, but lacked the wherewithall. Britain, France, and Israel sought to override it by force in the 1956 Suez Crisis until Daddy Ike told them that it wasn't cool. The umbrella of American power is their best remaining means of re-establishing imperial power. It puts the onus on the US for violations of international law, but promises them some restoration of imperial power in MENA.
Looking at the parade of toads that have occupied the White House in recent years, I have more and more respect for Eisenhower's balls in the 1956 crisis. Such a move by an American President seems unimaginable today.
Neocon-run Twitter took out Red Elephants account.Thirdeye , April 19, 2018 at 11:00 pm GMTTwitter bans Red Elephants but lets CNN have many accounts. Twitter favors Official Lies of the Conspiratorial Deep State against Speculative Dissent of Free Thinkers. PC is War against ASK SPEECH. We are not supposed to ASK questions of the Globalist Power.
According to Rules of Political Correctness, ASK SPEECH is not FREE SPEECH. Don't you dare ASK Questions. Just accept the Answers provided by Ministry of Propaganda or MSM that colludes with Deep State of NSA, CIA, FBI, Wall Street, and Hollywood. PC says we should Ass-kiss than Ask Questions.
World is divided between Askingers and Ass-Kissers. Those who ask questions of the power and those who ass-kiss the power. Unsurprisingly, most people in power got there by ass-kissing and being ass-kissed. We must ASK WHY.
@Chet Romanbjondo , April 20, 2018 at 2:09 am GMT"Making the world safe for democracy" was the sales pitch for preserving the F, UK empires long before there was Israel. That effort was driven largely by American Blue Blood bankers who had risky investments in the UK war effort. American Jews were suspected of loyalty to the Kaiser because they loathed the Russian Tsar.
@RobinGIn addition to corpses in his closet, wonder how much looted Russian loot in his off-shore account(s)?
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Apr 17, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Eric Bloodaxe , Apr 15, 2018 11:22:31 AM | 30
Douma False Flag.
The Russians have in their pocket (filmed I believe) a notable at the Douma (only) hospital (can't remember who) that has described the White Helmets filming as; a bomb destroyed the top floor of the hospital and the film crew moved bodies and kids to the basement and doused them with hoses and sprayed them with Ventolin (asthma inhaler – blue). This provided the film used to justify the Cruise missile attack Fri 13th. 2018.
The Russians have rumbled the Douma false flag and the OECD chemical weapons investigators are on their way to the Douma hospital (basement) to find no chemicals, they report in a few weeks.
Lavrov has said that the British ordered the Douma rebels to make a chemical warfare White Helmets type movie fast, in desperation, since the Russians/SAA forces attack was moving fast and they could obtain support bombing. The whole of East Ghouta has been taken by the SAA.
A decent video exposure on TV, or even a simple web search, completely debunks the 'White Helmets' that filmed the fake gas attack in the Douma hospital in East Ghouta. Re. my earlier email.
May didn't wait (in panic) for parliament approval and went ahead with military action (8 of our missiles wasted at £6.3M).
The 11 'handlers' (said to be officers) are not in the hands of the Russians (who have swopped theirs for ours previously) but are held by the SAA and could well have have spilled the beans. If they are paraded (filmed) and spill the beans things will get ugly for May et al.Peter AU 1 , Apr 15, 2018 11:54:09 AM | 33
Eric Bloodaxe 30Two medics from the Douma hospital have been interviewed on video. I ran onto the videos a day or so back, but cannot find them at the moment.
A bombed building collapsed and caught fire, trapping people in the basement who died of smoke and dust inhalation and asphyxiation. Some wounded were taken to the hospital, some with injuries, others needed treatment only for smoke and dust inhalation. This is when the film crew rushed in shouted chemicals and told everyone to douse themselves with water.
There are two videos of the dead. One I think is actually taken where the people died. The frothing around the mouth and other discharges look genuine. These victims were then moved to a different place and videoed to make the 'CW' attack seem more widespread. This is the second video where bodies are obviously dumped and some shaving cream applied.
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Apr 11, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Aren Haich , Apr 11, 2018 3:38:48 PM | 141
It is long passed the time when any thinking person took Trump-Tweets seriously. Trump, himself doesn't take them seriously and considers them as 'negotiating tactics'. Remember the tweets: "Fire & Fury the World has Never Seen Before", "Little Rocket Man" and "Bigger Nuclear Button", which then ushered in the prospect of a meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un?This latest Trump-Tweet about "Russia to be ready for new, smart missiles raining down on Syria" is also a negotiating ploy and to save face. Stock markets, even in this volatile times, have hardly budged, and the gold price is where it has been for the past year.
There will probably be a well-restricted cruise missile attack on some Syrian-Iranian base with Russia pre-warned. The long-promised meeting between Trump and Putin will emerge in the news to discuss the future of Syria. Trump's desire to pull out of Syria will then come about naturally and as the result of consultations with Putin.
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Mar 26, 2018 | www.theguardian.com
The Russian government called the expulsions "a provocative gesture" and said it would retaliate in kind, raising the prospect of further tit-for-tat expulsions, as the US and Europe left the door open for additional measures. The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin would make the final decision, and the Russian embassy in the US launched a poll on Twitter asking which US consulate in Russia should be closed.
The US has ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian officials who Washington says are spies, including a dozen based at the United Nations, and told Moscow to shut down its consulate in Seattle, which would end Russian diplomatic representation on the west coast.
The EU members Germany, France and Poland are each to expel four Russian diplomats with intelligence agency backgrounds. Lithuania and the Czech Republic said they would expel three, and Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands two each. Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, Finland, Hungary, Sweden and Romania each expelled one Russian. Iceland announced it would not be sending officials to the World Cup in Russia .
Ukraine, which is not an EU member, is to expel 13 Russian diplomats, while Albania, an EU candidate member, ordered the departure of two Russians from the embassy in Tirana. Macedonia, another EU candidate, expelled one Russian official.
Canada announced it was expelling four diplomatic staff serving in Ottawa and Montreal who the Canadian government said were spies. A pending application from Moscow for three more diplomatic posts in Canada is being denied.
Raj Shah, a White House spokesperson, told reporters Monday that the US expulsions were part of "a coordinated effort".
He added that Donald Trump "spoke with many foreign leaders, European allies and others and encouraged them to join with the United States in this announcement".
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Mar 23, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
President Trump congratulated Vladimir Putin to his reelection as president of the Russian Federation. It was a matter of simply courtesy to do so. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (aka the National Security Advisor), three star general McMaster, had advised him to not congratulate Putin. (McMaster now claims differently .) That was bad advice. But it became even worse when McMaster, or someone in his shop, promptly leaked this to the press. The usual Republican nutters like John McCain grumbled and Trump was furious.
Trump decided to fire McMaster the very next day. He had it coming. Both the White House Chief of Staff Kelly as well as the Secretary of Defense Mattis wanted McMaster out. Unfortunately for them Trump chose a replacement that they did not want and will find difficult to live with.
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Feb 20, 2018 | www.rt.com
Russophobia - "blame it all on Russia" - is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day of reckoning when furious and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for their legitimate grievances
It is an age-old statecraft technique to seek unity within a state by depicting an external enemy or threat. Russia is the bête noire again, as it was during the Cold War years as part of the Soviet Union.
But the truth is Western states are challenged by internal problems. Ironically, by denying their own internal democratic challenges, Western authorities are only hastening their institutional demise.
Russophobia -- "blame it all on Russia" -- is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day of reckoning when furious and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for their legitimate grievances.
The dominant "official" narrative, from the US to Europe, is that "malicious" Russia is "sowing division;""eroding democratic institutions;" and "undermining public trust" in systems of governance, credibility of established political parties, and the news media.
This narrative has shifted up a gear since the election of Donald Trump to the White House in 2016, with accusations that the Kremlin somehow ran "influence operations" to help get him into office. This outlandish yarn defies common sense. It is also running out of thread to keep spinning.
Paradoxically, even though President Trump has rightly rebuffed such dubious claims of "Russiagate" interference as "fake news", he has at other times undermined himself by subscribing to the notion that Moscow is projecting a campaign of "subversion against the US and its European allies." See for example the National Security Strategy he signed off in December.
Pathetically, it's become indoctrinated belief among the Western political class that "devious Russians" are out to "collapse" Western democracies by "weaponizing disinformation" and spreading "fake news" through Russia-based news outlets like RT and Sputnik.
Totalitarian-like, there seems no room for intelligent dissent among political or media figures.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has chimed in to accuse Moscow of "sowing division;" Dutch state intelligence claim Russia destabilized the US presidential election; the European Union commissioner for security, Sir Julian King, casually lampoons Russian news media as "Kremlin-orchestrated disinformation" to destabilize the 28-nation bloc; CIA chief Mike Pompeo recently warned that Russia is stepping up its efforts to tarnish the Congressional mid-term elections later this year.
On and on goes the narrative that Western states are essentially victims of a nefarious Russian assault to bring about collapse.
A particularly instructive presentation of this trope was given in a recent commentary by Texan Republican Representative Will Hurd. In his piece headlined, "Russia is our adversary" , he claims: "Russia is eroding our democracy by exploiting the nation's divisions. To save it, Americans need to begin working together."
Congressman Hurd asserts: "Russia has one simple goal: to erode trust in our democratic institutions It has weaponized disinformation to achieve this goal for decades in Eastern and Central Europe; in 2016, Western Europe and America were aggressively targeted as well."
Lamentably, all these claims above are made with scant, or no, verifiable evidence. It is simply a Big Lie technique of relentless repetition transforming itself into "fact" .
It's instructive to follow Congressman Hurd's thought-process a bit further.
He contends: "When the public loses trust in the media, the Russians are winning. When the press is hyper-critical of Congress the Russians are winning. When Congress and the general public disagree the Russians are winning. When there is friction between Congress and the executive branch [the president] resulting in further erosion of trust in our democratic institutions, the Russians are winning."
As a putative solution, Representative Hurd calls for "a national counter-disinformation strategy" against Russian "influence operations" , adding, "Americans must stop contributing to a corrosive political environment".
The latter is a chilling advocacy of uniformity tantamount to a police state whereby any dissent or criticism is a "thought-crime."
It is, however, such anti-democratic and paranoid thinking by Western politicians -- aided and abetted by dutiful media -- that is killing democracy from within, not some supposed foreign enemy.
There is evidently a foreboding sense of demise in authority and legitimacy among Western states, even if the real cause for the demise is ignored or denied. Systems of governance, politicians of all stripes, and institutions like the established media and intelligence services are increasingly held in contempt and distrust by the public.
Whose fault is that loss of political and moral authority? Western governments and institutions need to take a look in the mirror.
The endless, criminal wars that the US and its European NATO allies have been waging across the planet over the past two decades is one cogent reason why the public has lost faith in grandiose official claims about respecting democracy and international law.
The US and European media have shown reprehensible dereliction of duty to inform the public accurately about their governments' warmongering intrigues. Take the example of Syria. When does the average Western citizen ever read in the corporate Western media about how the US and its NATO allies have covertly ransacked that country through weaponizing terrorist proxies?
How then can properly informed citizens be expected to have respect for such criminal government policies and the complicit news media covering up for their crimes?
Western public disaffection with governments, politicians and media surely stems also from the grotesque gulf in social inequality and poverty among citizens from slavish adherence to economic policies that enrich the wealthy while consigning the vast majority to unrelenting austerity.
The destabilizing impact on societies from oppressive economic conditions is a far more plausible cause for grievance than outlandish claims made by the political class about alleged "Russian interference".
Yet the Western media indulge this fantastical "Russiagate" escapism instead of campaigning on real social problems facing ordinary citizens. No wonder such media are then viewed with disdain and distrust. Adding insult to injury, these media want the public to believe Russia is the enemy?
Instead of acknowledging and addressing real threats to citizens: economic insecurity, eroding education and health services, lost career opportunities for future generations, the looming dangers of ecological adversity, wars prompted by Western governments trashing international and diplomacy, and so on -- the Western public is insultingly plied with corny tales of Russia's "malign influence" and "assault on democracy."
Just think of the disproportionate amount of media attention and public resources wasted on the Russiagate scandal over the past year. And now gradually emerging is the real scandal that the American FBI probably colluded with the Obama administration to corrupt the democratic process against Trump.
Again, is there any wonder the public has sheer contempt and distrust for "authorities" that have been lying through their teeth and playing them for fools?
The collapsing state of Western democracies has got nothing to do with Russia. The Russophobia of blaming Russia for the demise of Western institutions is an attempt at scapegoating for the very real problems facing governments and institutions like the news media. Those problems are inherent and wholly owned by these governments owing to chronic anti-democratic functioning, as well as systematic violation of international law in their pursuit of criminal wars and other subterfuges for regime-change objectives.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
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Feb 10, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
(Editorial Statement)
The Borgist foreign policy of the administration has little to do with the generals. To comprehend the generals one must understand their collective mentality and the process that raised them on high as a collective of their own. The post WW2 promotion process in the armed forces has produced a group at the top with a mentality that typically thinks rigorously but not imaginatively or creatively.
These men got to their present ranks and positions by being conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board."
If asked at the top, where military command and political interaction intersect, what policy should be they always ask for more money and to be allowed to pursue outcomes that they can understand as victory and self fulfilling with regard to their collective self image as warrior chieftains.
In Obama's time they were asked what policy should be in Afghanistan and persuaded him to reinforce their dreams in Afghanistan no matter how unlikely it always was that a unified Western oriented nation could be made out of a collection of disparate mutually alien peoples.
In Trump's time his essential disinterest in foreign policy has led to a massive delegation of authority to Mattis and the leadership of the empire's forces. Their reaction to that is to look at their dimwitted guidance from on high (defeat IS, depose Assad and the SAG, triumph in Afghanistan) and to seek to impose their considerable available force to seek accomplishment as they see fit of this guidance in the absence of the kind of restrictions that Obama placed on them.
Like the brass, I, too, am a graduate of all those service schools that attend success from the Basic Course to the Army War College. I will tell you again that the people at the top are not good at "the vision thing." They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers. pl
Jack , 09 February 2018 at 05:42 PM
SirFredw , 09 February 2018 at 06:26 PMIMO, this conformism pervades all institutions. I saw when I worked in banking and finance many moons ago how moving up the ranks in any large organization meant you didn't rock the boat and you conformed to the prevailing groupthink. Even nutty ideas became respectable because they were expedient.
Academia reinforces the groupthink. The mavericks are shunned or ostracized. The only ones I have seen with some degree of going against the grain are technology entrepreneurs.
You remind me of an old rumination by Thomas Ricks:Peter AU , 09 February 2018 at 06:37 PMTake the example of General George Casey. According to David Cloud and Greg Jaffe's book Four Stars, General Casey, upon learning of his assignment to command U.S. forces in Iraq, received a book from the Army Chief of Staff. The book Counterinsurgency Lessons Learned from Malaya and Vietnam was the first book he ever read about guerilla warfare." This is a damning indictment of the degree of mental preparation for combat by a general. The Army's reward for such lack of preparation: two more four star assignments.
"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I have found this to be the case with 80 to 90% of most professions. A good memory and able to perform meticulously what they have been taught, but little thinking outside that narrow box. Often annoying, but very dangerous in this case.Anna , 09 February 2018 at 06:48 PMSince Afghanistan and the brass were mentioned in the editorial statement, here is an immodest question -- Where the brass have been while the opium production has been risen dramatically in Afghanistan under the US occupation? "Heroin Addiction in America Spearheaded by the US-led War on Afghanistan" by Paul Craig Roberts: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/heroin-addiction-america-spearheaded-us-led-war-afghanistan/J , 09 February 2018 at 07:05 PM" in 2000-2001 the Taliban government –with the support of the United Nations (UNODC) – implemented a successful ban on poppy cultivation. Opium production which is used to produce grade 4 heroin and its derivatives declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001. The production of opium in 2001 was of the order of a meager 185 tons. It is worth noting that the UNODC congratulated the Taliban Government for its successful opium eradication program. The Taliban government had contributed to literally destabilizing the multibillion dollar Worldwide trade in heroin.
In 2017, the production of opium in Afghanistan under US military occupation reached 9000 metric tons. The production of opium in Afghanistan registered a 49 fold increase since Washington's invasion. Afghanistan under US military occupation produces approximately 90% of the World's illegal supply of opium which is used to produce heroin. Who owns the airplanes and ships that transport heroin from Afghanistan to the US? Who gets the profits?"
---A simple Q: What has been the role of the CENTCOM re the racket? Who has arranged the protection for the opium production and for drug dealers? Roberts suggests that the production of opium in Afghanistan "finances the black operations of the CIA and Western intelligence agencies." -- All while Awan brothers, Alperovitch and such tinker with the US national security?
Colonel,divadab , 09 February 2018 at 07:16 PMThere needs to be a 're-education' of the top, all of them need to be required to attend Green Beret think-school, in other words they need to be forced to think outside the box, and to to think on their feet. They need to understand fluid situations where things change at the drop of a hat, be able to dance the two-step and waltz at the same time. In other words they need to be able to walk and chew gum and not trip over their shoe-laces.
By no means are they stupid, but you hit the nail on the head when you said 'narrow thinkers'. Their collective hive mentality that has developed is not a good thing.
God help the poor people of Syria.james , 09 February 2018 at 07:30 PMthanks pat... it seems like the usa has had a steady group of leaders that have no interest in the world outside of the usa, or only in so far as they can exploit it for their own interest... maybe that sums up the foreign policy of the usa at this point... you say trump is disinterested.. so all the blather from trump about 'why are we even in syria?', or 'why can't we be friends with the russia?' is just smoke up everyone's ass...David E. Solomon , 09 February 2018 at 07:50 PMi like what you said here "conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board." - that strikes me as very true - conformist group thinkers... the world needs less of these types and more actual leaders who have a vision for something out of the box and not always on board... i thought for a while trump might fill this bill, but no such luck by the looks of it now..
Colonel Lang,DianaLC , 09 February 2018 at 07:56 PMYour description of these guys sounds like what we have heard about Soviet era planners. Am I correct in my understanding, or am I missing something?
Regards,
David
As a young person in eighth grade, I learned about the "domino theory" in regard to attempts to slow the spread of communism. Then my generation was, in a sense, fractured around the raging battles for and against our involvement in Vietnam.Bill Herschel , 09 February 2018 at 09:11 PMI won't express my own opinion on that. But I mention it because it seems to be a type of "vision thing."
So, now I ask, what would be your vision for the Syrian situation?
This has been going on for a long time has it not? Westmoreland? MacArthur?turcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 09:40 PMHow did this happen?
Bill Herschelturcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 09:48 PMWestmoreland certainly, Macarthur certainly not. This all started with the "industrialization" of the armed forces in WW2. we never recovered the sense of profession as opposed to occupation after the massive expansion and retention of so many placeholders. a whole new race of Walmart manager arose and persists. pl
DianaCturcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 09:55 PMThe idea of the Domino Theory came from academia, not the generals of that time. They resisted the idea of a war in east Asia until simply ordered into it by LBJ. After that their instinct for acting according to guidance kicked in and they became committed to the task. Syria? Do you think I should write you an essay on that? SST has a large archive and a search machine. pl
David E. Solomonturcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 10:08 PMI am talking about flag officers at present, not those beneath them from the mass of whom they emerge. There are exceptions. Martin Dempsey may have been one such. The system creates such people at the top. pl
elaine,turcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 10:12 PMYour usual animosity for non-left wing authority is showing. A commander like the CENTCOM theater commander (look it up) operates within guidance from Washington, broad guidance. Normally this is the president's guidance as developed in the NSC process. Some presidents like Obama and LBJ intervene selectively and directly in the execution of that guidance. Obama had a "kill list" of jihadis suggested by the IC and condemned by him to die in the GWOT. He approved individual missions against them. LBJ picked individual air targets in NVN. Commanders in the field do not like that . They think that freedom of action within their guidance should be accorded them. This CinC has not been interested thus far in the details and have given the whole military chain of command wide discretion to carry out their guidance. pl
Jturcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 10:24 PMThank you, but it is real GBs that you like, not the Delta and SEAL door kickers. pl
Gaikomainakuturcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 10:27 PM"I am not sure that I understand what makes a Borgist different from a military conformist." The Borg and the military leaders are not of the same tribe. they are two different collectives who in the main dislike and distrust each other. pl
Anna. Their guidance does not include a high priority for eradicating the opium trade. Their guidance has to do with defeating the jihadis and building up the central government. plturcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 10:30 PMPeter AUturcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 10:44 PMPredictably there is always someone who says that this group is not different from all others. Unfortunately the military function demands more than the level of mediocrity found in most groups. pl
jamesPeter AU , 09 February 2018 at 11:01 PMTrump would like to better relations with Russia but that is pretty much the limit of his attention to foreign affairs at any level more sophisticated than expecting deference. He is firmly focused on the economy and base solidifying issues like immigration. pl
The medical profession comes to mind. GP's and specialists. Many of those working at the leading edge of research seem much wider thinking and are not locked into the small box of what they have been taught.turcopolier , 09 February 2018 at 11:16 PMPeter AUJ -> turcopolier ... , 09 February 2018 at 11:22 PMThe GPs do not rule over a hierarchy of doctors. pl
Combat Applications Group and SEALS don't even begin to compare, they're not in the same league as 'real deal' GBs. The GBs are thinkers as well as doers, whereas Combat Applications Group and SEALs all they know is breach and clear, breach and clear.kao_hsien_chih -> Jack... , 09 February 2018 at 11:22 PMThere is more to life than breach and clear. Having worked with all in one manner or another, I'll take GBs any day hands down. It makes a difference when the brain is engaged instead of just the heel.
A lot of technology entrepreneurs--especially those active today--are stuck in their own groupthink, inflated by their sense that they are born for greatness and can do no wrong.FB Ali , 09 February 2018 at 11:23 PMThe kind of grand schemes that the top people at Google, Uber, and Facebook think up to remake the universe in their own idea of "good society" are frightening. That they are cleverer (but not necessarily wiser) than the academics, borgists, or generals, I think, makes them even more dangerous.
Col Lang,turcopolier , 10 February 2018 at 01:03 AMThey are indeed "narrow thinkers", but I think the problem runs deeper. They seem to be stuck in the rut of a past era. When the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to accept the reality of the world as it is now.
Of course, these policies ensure that they continue to be well-funded, even if the US is bankrupting itself in the process.
dogearLondonBob , 10 February 2018 at 06:59 AMHe is still the Saudi Mukhtar for the US and most of the generals are still narrow minded. pl
They [the generals] seem to have deliberately completely ignored the issues and policy positions Trump ran on as President. It isn't a case of ignorance but of wilful disregard.turcopolier , 10 February 2018 at 07:55 AMLondonBobDianaLC said in reply to turcopolier ... , 10 February 2018 at 09:23 AMI think that is true but, they were able to talk him into that, thus far. pl
I've been reading this blog for some time. My question was facetious and written with the understanding of your statement about the generals not having a good grasp of "the vision thing" on their own.Terry , 10 February 2018 at 09:25 AMSo true and as others commented this is a sad feature of the human race and all human organizations. Herd mentality ties into social learning. Chimps are on average more creative and have better short term memory than humans. We gave up some short term memory in order to be able to learn quickly by mimicking. If shown how to open a puzzle box but also shown unnecessary extra steps a chimp will ignore the empty steps and open the box with only the required steps. A human will copy what they saw exactly performing the extra steps as if they have some unknown value to the process. Our massive cultural heritages are learned by observing and taken in as a whole. This process works within organizations as well.TV , 10 February 2018 at 10:18 AMI suspect a small percentage of the human race functions differently than the majority and retains creative thinking and openness along with more emphasis on cognitive thinking than social learning but generally they always face a battle when working to change the group "consensus", i.e. Fulton's folly, scepticism on whether man would ever fly, etc.
One nice feature of the internet allows creative thinkers to connect and watch the idiocy of the world unfold around us.
"A natural desire to be part of the 'in crowd' could damage our ability to make the right decisions, a new study has shown."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141216212049.htm
The military by definition is a rigid hierarchical structure. It could not function as a collection of individuals. This society can only breed conforming narrow leaders as an "individual" would leave or be forced out.Barbara Ann , 10 February 2018 at 10:22 AM
That part of our brain responsible for the desire to be part of the 'in crowd' may affect our decision-making process, but it is also the reason we keep chimps in zoos and not the other way around. Or, to put it another way; if chimps had invented Facebook, I might consider them more creative than us.Babak Makkinejad -> Terry... , 10 February 2018 at 10:30 AMDo you think chimps are, per the Christian Docrine, in a State of Fall or in a State of Grace?Adrestia , 10 February 2018 at 10:32 AMThis is an interesting discussion. The top in organisations (civil and military) are increasingly technocrats and thinking like systems managers. They are unable to innovate because they lack the ability to think out of the box. Usually there is a leader who depends on specialists. Others (including laymen) are often excluding from the decision-making-proces. John Ralston Saul's Voltaires Bastards describes this very well.Generalfeldmarschall von Hindenburg -> gaikokumaniakku... , 10 February 2018 at 11:58 AMBecause of natural selection (conformist people tend to choose similar people who resemble their own values and ways-of-thinking) organizations have a tendency to become homogeneous (especially the higher management/ranks).
In combination with the "dumbing" of people (also of people who have a so-called good education (as described in Richard Sale's Sterile Chit-Chat ) this is a disastrous mix.
Homogeneity is the main culprit. A specialists tends to try to solve problems with the same knowledge-set that created these.
Not all (parts of) organizations and people suffer this fate. Innovations are usually done by laymen and not by specialists. The organizations are often heterogeneous and the people a-typical and/or eccentric.
(mainly the analytical parts of ) intelligence organizations and investment banks are like that if they are worth anything. Very heterogeneous with a lot of a-typical people. I think Green Berets are also like that. An open mind and genuine interest in others (cultures, way of thinking, religion etc) is essential to understand and to perform and also to prevent costly mistakes (in silver and/or blood).
It is possible to create firewalls against tunnel-vision. The Jester performed such a role. Also think of the Emperors New Clothes . The current trend of people with limited vision and creativity prevents this. Criticism is punished with a lack of promotion, job-loss or even jail (whistle-blowers)
IMO this is why up to a certain rank (colonel or middle management) a certain amount of creativity or alternative thinking is allowed, but conformity is essential to rise higher.
I was very interested in the Colonel's remark on the foreign background of the GB in Vietnam. If you would like to expand on this I would be much obliged? IMO GB are an example of a smart, learning, organization (in deed and not only in word as so many say of themselves, but who usually are at best mediocre)
Isn't the "Borg" really The Atlantic Council?ISL , 10 February 2018 at 12:58 PMDear Colonel,ex-PFC Chuck said in reply to FB Ali ... , 10 February 2018 at 01:08 PMWould you then say that a rising military officer who does have the vision thing faces career impediments? If so, would you say that the vision thing is lost (if it ever was there) at the highest ranks? In any case, the existence of even a few at the top, like Matthis or Shinseki is a blessing.
FB Ali:Adrestia , 10 February 2018 at 02:03 PM"When the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to accept the reality of the world as it is now."That's true not only of the US military but of US elites in general across all of the spectra. And because that reality is at odds with the group-think of those within the various elements that make up the spectra it doesn't a hearing. Anyone who tries to bring it up risks being ejected from the group.I forget an important part. I really miss an edit-button. Comment-boxes are like looking at something through a straw. Its easy to miss the overview.kooshy , 10 February 2018 at 02:19 PMInnovations and significant new developments are usually made by laymen. IMO mainly because they have a fresh perspective without being bothered by the (mainstream) knowledge that dominates an area of expertise.
By excluding the laymen errors will continue to be repeated. This can be avoided by using development/decision-making frameworks, but these tend to become dogma (and thus become part of the problem)
Much better is allowing laymen and allowing a-typical people. Then listen to them carefully. Less rigid flexible and very valuable.
Apparently, according to the last US ambassador to Syria Mr. Ford, from 2014-17 US has spent 12 Billion on Regime change in Syria. IMO, combinedly Iran and Russia so far, have spent far less in Syria than 12 billion by US alone, not considering the rest of her so called coalition. This is a war of attrition, and US operations in wars, are usually far more expensive and longer than anybody else's.J , 10 February 2018 at 02:49 PM"The United States spent at least $12 billion in Syria-related military and civilian expenses in the four years from 2014 through 2017, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the country. This $12 billion is in addition to the billions more spent to pursue regime change in Syria in the previous three years, after war broke out in 2011." https://goo.gl/8pj5cD
Colonel, TTG, PT,Richardstevenhack -> turcopolier ... , 10 February 2018 at 02:56 PMFYI regarding Syria
It may "demand" it - but does it get it? Soldiers are just as human as everyone else.dogear said in reply to Terry... , 10 February 2018 at 02:59 PMI'm reminded of the staff sergeant with the sagging beer belly who informed me, "Stand up straight and look like a soldier..." Or the First Sergeant who was so hung over one morning at inspection that he couldn't remember which direction he was going down the hall to the next room to be inspected. I'm sure you have your own stories of less than competence.
It's a question of intelligence and imagination. And frankly, I don't see the military in any country receiving the "best and brightest" of that country's population, by definition. The fact that someone is patriotic enough to enter the military over a civilian occupation doesn't make them more intelligent or imaginative than the people who decided on the civilian occupation.
Granted, if you fail at accounting, you don't usually die. Death tends to focus the mind, as they say. Nonetheless, we're not talking about the grunts at the level who actually die, still less the relatively limited number of Special Forces. We're talking about the officers and staff at the levels who don't usually die in war - except maybe at their defeat - i.e., most officers over the level of captain.
One can hardly look at this officer crowd in the Pentagon and CENTCOM and say that their personal death concentrates their mind. They are in virtually no danger of that. Only career death faces them - with a nice transition to the board of General Dynamics at ten times the salary.
All in all, I'd have to agree that the military isn't much better at being competent - at many levels above the obvious group of hyper-trained Special Forces - any more than any other profession.
That is well put.most important is the grading system that is designed to fix a person to a particular slot thereby limiting his ability to think "outside the box" and consider the many variables that exist in one particular instant.Mark Logan said in reply to Peter AU... , 10 February 2018 at 03:30 PMCreative thinking allows you to see beyond the storm clouds ahead and realize that the connectedness of different realities both the visible and invisible. For instance the picture of the 2 pairs of korean skaters in the news tells an interesting story on many levels. Some will judge them on their grade of proffiency, while others will see a dance of strategy between 2 foes and a few will know the results in advance and plan accordingly
Peter AUturcopolier , 10 February 2018 at 05:03 PM"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I've often pondered that concept. Notice how many of radical extremist leaders were doctors, engineers and such? Narrow and deep. STEM is enormously useful to us but seems to be a risky when implanted in shallow earth.
Mark Loganturcopolier , 10 February 2018 at 05:13 PMThese narrow "but deep" thinkers were unable to grasp the nature of the Iraq War for the first couple of years. They thought of it as a rear area security problem, a combat in cities problem, anything but a popular rebellion based on xenophobia and anti-colonialism The IED problem? They spent several billion dollars on trying to find a technology fix and never succeeded. I know because they kept asking me to explain the war to them and then could not understand the answers which were outside their narrow thought. pl
ISLoutthere , 10 February 2018 at 05:19 PMWar College selectees, the national board selected creme de la creme test out as 50% SJs (conformists lacking vision) in Myers-Briggs terms and about 15% NTs (intellectuals). To survive and move upward in a system dominated by SJs, the NTs must pretend to be what they are not. A few succeed. I do not think Mattis is an intellectual merely because he has read a lot. pl
Long ago when I was a professor, I advised my students that "the law is like a pencil sharpener, it sharpens the mind by narrowing it." I tried to encourage them to "think backwards".turcopolier , 10 February 2018 at 05:24 PMMy favorite example was a Japanese fisherman who recovered valuable ancient Chinese pottery. Everyone knew where an ancient ship had sunk, but the water was too deep to dive down to the wreck. And everyone knew the cargo included these valuable vases. And the fisherman was the first to figure out how to recover them. He attached a line to an octopus, and lowered it in the area, waited awhile, and pulled it up. Low and behold, the octopus had hidden in an ancient Chinese vase. The fisherman was familiar with trapping octopuses, by lowering a ceramic pot (called "takosubo") into the ocean, waiting awhile, then raising the vase with octopus inside. His brilliance was to think backwards, and use an octopus to catch a vase.
TVturcopolier , 10 February 2018 at 05:31 PMBy your calculation people like Joe Stilwell and George Patton should not have existed. pl
Adrestiaked , 10 February 2018 at 05:56 PMthe original GBS were recruited in the 50s to serve in the OSS role with foreign guerrillas behind Soviet lines in th event of war in Europe. Aaron Bank, the founder, recruited several hundred experienced foreign soldiers from the likely countries who wanted to become American. By the time we were in VN these men were a small fraction of GBs but important for their expertise and professionalism. pl
Col, I think it might help people to think of "the Borg" - as you have defined & applied it - in a broader context. It struck me particularly as you ID'd the launching of our modern military group-think / careerism behavior coming from the watershed of industrialized scale & processes that came out of WWII.turcopolier , 10 February 2018 at 06:00 PMWe note parallel themes in all significant sectors of our civilization. The ever-expanding security state, the many men in Gray Flannel Suits that inhabit corporate culture, Finance & Banking & Big Health scaling ever larger - all processes aimed to slice the salami thinner & quicker, to the point where meat is moot ... and so it goes.
I note many Borgs... Borgism if you will. An organizational behavior that has emerged out of human nature having difficulty adapting to rapidly accelerating complexity that is just too hard to apprehend in a few generations. If (as many commenters on STT seem to...) one wishes to view this in an ideological or spiritual framework only, they may overlook an important truth - that what we are experiencing is a Battle Among Borgs for control over their own space & domination over the other Borgs. How else would we expect any competitive, powerful interest group to act?
In gov & industry these days, we observe some pretty wild outliers... attached to some wild outcomes. Thus the boring behavior of our political industries bringing forth Trump, our promethean technology sector yielding a Musk (& yes, a Zuckerberg).
I find it hard to take very seriously analysts that define their perspective based primarily upon their superior ideals & opposition to others. Isn't every person, every tribe, team or enterprise a borglet-in-becoming? Everybody Wants to Rule the World ... & Everybody Must Get Stoned... messages about how we are grappling with complexity in our times. I just finished reading Command & Control (about nuclear weapons policy, systems design & accidents). I am amazed we've made it this far.
Unfortunately, I would not be amazed if reckless, feckless leaders changed the status quo. I was particularly alarmed hearing Trump in his projection mode; "I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity, without a major event where people pull together, that's hard to do.
But I would like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing." It strikes me that he could be exceptionally willing to risk a Major Event if he felt a form of unity, or self-preservation, was in the offing. I pray (& I do not pray often or easily) that the Generals you have described have enough heart & guts to honor their oath at its most profound level in the event of an Event.
babakBarbara Ann -> outthere... , 10 February 2018 at 06:00 PMAs a time traveler from another age, I can only say that for me it means devotion to a set of mores peculiar to a particular profession as opposed to an occupation. pl
Great example outthere.Another springs to mind: James Lovelock (of Gaia hypothesis fame) was once part of the NASA team building the first probe to go to Mars to look for signs of life. Lovelock didn't make any friends when he told NASA they were wasting their time, there was none. When asked how he could be so sure, he explained that the composition of the Martian atmosphere made it impossible. "But Martian life may be able to survive under different conditions" was the retort. Lovelock then went on to explain his view that the evolution of microbial life determined the atmospheric composition on Earth, so should be expected to do the same if life had evolved on Mars. Brilliant backwards thinking which ought to have earned him the Nobel prize IMHO (for Gaia). Lovelock, a classic cross-disciplinary scientist, can't be rewarded with such a box-categorized honor, as his idea doesn't fit well into any one.
Another example of cross-disciplinary brilliance was Bitcoin, which has as much to do with its creator's deep knowledge of Anthropology (why people invented & use money) as his expertise in both Economics and Computer Science.
This is they key to creative thinking in my view - familiarity with different fields yields deeper insights.
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Jan 30, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The Unseen Wars of America the Empire By Patrick J. Buchanan • January 30, 2018, 12:01 AM
Forward Operating Base Torkham, in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan (army.mil) If Turkey is not bluffing, U.S. troops in Manbij, Syria, could be under fire by week's end, and NATO engulfed in the worst crisis in its history.Turkish President Erdogan said Friday his forces will cleanse Manbij of Kurdish fighters, alongside whom U.S. troops are embedded.
Erdogan's foreign minister demanded concrete steps by the United States to end its support of the Kurds, who control the Syrian border with Turkey east of the Euphrates all the way to Iraq.
If the Turks attack Manbij, America will face a choice: stand by our Kurdish allies and resist the Turks, or abandon the Kurds.
Should the U.S. let the Turks drive the Kurds out of Manbij and the entire Syrian border area, as Erdogan threatens, American credibility would suffer a blow from which it would not soon recover.
But to stand with the Kurds and oppose Erdogan's forces could mean a crackup of NATO and a loss of U.S. bases inside Turkey, including the air base at Incirlik.
Turkey also sits astride the Dardanelles entrance to the Black Sea. NATO's loss would thus be a triumph for Vladimir Putin, who gave Ankara the green light to cleanse the Kurds from Afrin.
Yet Syria is but one of many challenges facing U.S. foreign policy.
The Winter Olympics in South Korea may have taken the menace of a North Korean ICBM out of the news, but no one believes that threat is behind us.
Last week, China charged that the USS Hopper, a guided missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal, a reef in the South China Sea claimed by Beijing, though it is far closer to Luzon in the Philippines. The destroyer, says China, was chased off by one of her frigates. If we continue to contest China's territorial claims with our warships, a clash is inevitable.
In a similar incident Monday, a Russian military jet came within five feet of a U.S. Navy EP-3 Orion surveillance jet in international airspace over the Black Sea, forcing the Navy plane to end its mission.
U.S. relations with Cold War ally Pakistan are at rock bottom. In his first tweet of 2018, President Trump charged Pakistan with being a false friend.
"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools," Trump declared. "They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
As for America's longest war in Afghanistan, now in its 17th year, the end is nowhere on the horizon. A week ago, the International Hotel in Kabul was attacked and held for 13 hours by Taliban gunmen who killed 40. Midweek, a Save the Children facility in Jalalabad was attacked by ISIS, creating panic among aid workers across the country.
Saturday, an ambulance exploded in Kabul, killing 103 people and wounding 235. Monday, Islamic State militants attacked Afghan soldiers guarding a military academy in Kabul. With the fighting season two months off, U.S. troops will not soon be departing. If Pakistan is indeed providing sanctuary for the terrorists of the Haqqani network, how does this war end successfully for the United States? Last week, in a friendly fire incident, the U.S.-led coalition killed 10 Iraqi soldiers. The Iraq war began 15 years ago.
Yet another war, where the humanitarian crisis rivals Syria, continues on the Arabian Peninsula. There, a Saudi air, sea, and land blockade that threatens the Yemeni people with starvation has failed to dislodge Houthi rebels who seized the capital Sanaa three years ago. This weekend brought news that secessionist rebels, backed by the United Arab Emirates, seized power in Yemen's southern port of Aden from the Saudi-backed Hadi regime fighting the Houthis. These rebels seek to split the country, as it was before 1990.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE appear to be backing different horses in this tribal-civil-sectarian war into which America has been drawn. There are other wars -- Somalia, Libya, Ukraine -- where the U.S. is taking sides, sending arms, training troops, flying missions.
Like the Romans, we have become an empire, committed to fighting for scores of nations, with troops on every continent and forces in combat operations of which the American people are only vaguely aware. "I didn't know there were 1,000 troops in Niger," said Senator Lindsey Graham when four Green Berets were killed there. "We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily, and what we're doing."
No, we don't, Senator. As in all empires, power is passing to the generals. And what causes the greatest angst today in the imperial city? Fear that a four-page memo worked up in the House Judiciary Committee may discredit Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia-gate.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
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Jan 29, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Leveraged Algorithm Jan 29, 2018 1:22 AM Permalink
An Shrubbery Jan 29, 2018 1:28 AM PermalinkWhen do they run out of people for this...
Archive_file, Jan 29, 2018 1:31 AM PermalinkSo now Turkey's invading Syria, too? Curiouser and curiouser...
Juggernaut x2 -> Archive_file, Jan 29, 2018 2:43 AM PermalinkRemember Gallipoli!!
OverTheHedge -> Archive_file, Jan 29, 2018 2:53 AM Permalinkanother fuck-up by Churchill
fajensen -> OverTheHedge, Jan 29, 2018 5:09 AM PermalinkIn what way? The fact that the Turks won? They beat the shit out some very tough British and Anzac troops, who were invading their country. Might be something to consider at this point.
Another point: this little piece of Syria that is being invaded lies between two other little bits of Syria that turkey has already invaded / occupied. If they manage to link up on either side, they will have created a wide buffer on their border. Is this just a bit of "protection" for turkey, or is it part of the US plan to split up, partition and dismember Syria?
Everyone is assuming this is an anti-American, Russia-backed operation, and Turkey has left the NATO fold, but is it? Wheels within wheels, and it's is not clear what the end result will be. If I was Assad, I would be looking very closely at all this. There seems to be some suggestion that the Kurds are getting reinforcements and supplies shipped via Syrian government areas, which is interesting.
gougeonit, Jan 29, 2018 1:36 AM PermalinkIn what way? The fact that the Turks won?
Yes. It is OK for an empire to be hated and feared, it doesn't work so good when Glory slowly fades and he empire instead becomes hated and despised.
If one is set on running an empire, one simply cannot afford to be seen losing to "inferior 3'rd world tribals" very often, if not they, then others will take notice and get ideas.
Letting one's side down has consequences. Not delivering on the benefits promised for foreigners serving the empire has consequences too.
Blue Steel 309, Jan 29, 2018 1:41 AM PermalinkSo is it, The enemy of my enemy is the enemy of my enemy?
Omega_Man Jan 29, 2018 4:17 AM PermalinkThe USA was not designed to be an empire, it was designed to be a Republic for, by and of the People. Our international adventurism will be the death of not just us, but possibly the world. Not a month goes by without a major provocative incident towards Russia. Usually assassinations of Russian diplomats, Oligarchs, or military bellicosity. I wonder if these are in response to disavowed US operatives being killed, or if Russia is exhibiting enormous restraint, because they are the responsible ones who don't want to see the world burn for Israel.
Omega_Man Jan 29, 2018 4:18 AM Permalinkso what, mericans killed millions in iraq and syria... you didn't cry then.
SaudiMail Jan 29, 2018 5:26 AM Permalinkhopefully merica and turkey will get into a big war...and not let those mericans off the hook...
I watched 'The Promise' last night, about the Armenian genocide which the Turks still deny to this day.
Seems history is repeating itself in Syria.
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Jan 22, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Paul Pillar comments on the Trump administration's outrageous plan to keep U.S. troops in Syria indefinitely:
The Trump administration is having U.S. troops participate indefinitely in someone else's civil war, for reasons that are quite different from the original stated objective of helping to quash the so-called caliphate of the Islamic State (ISIS). The new reasons do not stand up to scrutiny in terms of defending any threatened U.S. interests. The administration has in effect made a decision to immerse the United States in yet another foreign war.
Keeping U.S. forces in Syria is illegal and unnecessary, as I said last week. Preventing the Syrian government from reestablishing control over its own territory has nothing to do with American security, and there are still no vital American interests at stake in Syria. Putting U.S. forces in harm's way to stop Iran from having influence in the territory of its own ally is as senseless a waste of American resources and manpower as one can imagine, but that is what we have come to expect from an administration irrationally fixated on harming Iran at the expense of everything else.
The unauthorized, open-ended commitment in Syria is also a good example of how easily presidents can perpetuate and expand U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts with only minimal resistance at home. There are some vocal critics of the plan for this very reason:
There is ZERO legal authorization to stay in Syria to fight Iran. If Administration gets away with this, there is no going back – executive branch war making power becomes absolute. https://t.co/xBWLuTmaMN
-- Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) January 18, 2018
Sen. Murphy is right to object, but I fear that illegal presidential wars have become common enough over the last decade that it won't even occur to most of Trump's opponents to question the legality of what he's doing here. The Libyan war, the war on ISIS, and U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen were all similarly unauthorized, but Obama was able to "get away" with all of these for years because most of his domestic opponents didn't care and most in his own party weren't willing to criticize him. Our political culture's abject deference to presidential power on matters of war makes it easy for presidents to get away with these things. When Trump ordered an attack on Syrian government forces last year, he had absolutely no authority to do that and was in direction violation of the U.N. Charter and the Constitution, but instead of being condemned for his flagrantly illegal action he was celebrated and praised for his "leadership."
More members of Congress could challenge Trump over the illegality of the ongoing U.S. military presence in Syria, but most of them seem content to abdicate all responsibility for these matters in order to minimize their exposure when something goes wrong later. Americans have been conditioned by the last sixteen years of unending war and decades of the cult of the presidency to shrug when the president commits the U.S. to another open-ended military mission in a foreign country that has nothing to do with our security or self-defense. Perhaps now that Trump is the one doing it there will be a stronger reaction. I hope there is, but I wouldn't bet on it.
New Lamps For Old January 22, 2018 at 8:58 am
spite , says: January 22, 2018 at 10:44 amNot only is there zero authorization for Trump to be in Syria, there's zero public support for it. Truth be told of course, it isn't really Trump doing this. Trump is just the creature of his handlers, and his handlers are now mostly lesser-known neocons that have been infiltrating his administration through various cracks and holes.
Expect not just more chaos and bloodshed in Syria involving US troops and clients, but also that Trump will now do what Bibi has been screaming for for years – full-on confrontation with Iran.
I voted for him.
I will never vote for him again.
I do not support this one bit, but by now people who follow such things should see that it does not matter who is president, the same will happen regardless who is president. If Hillary won this would have happened, under Obama this was being put in place. If a president was elected who promised to pull out of Syria and made it his key election talking point, there would be no pull out.Iron Felix , says: January 22, 2018 at 11:26 amNew Lamps For Old "I will never vote for him again."rayray , says: January 22, 2018 at 12:00 pmThe problem with our fundamentally undemocratic political setup is that you can vote against the Republicans or the Democrats, but you cannot vote against a policy of constant illegal warfare since both parties support it and have for a long time. It is baked into the system of imperialism.
@New Lamps for Old
Also worth noting, Trump is definitely being played, but he's a hugely easy play. GWB was an easy play by anyone's estimation, but Trump outdoes them all.You just have to say, "you look a tough man right now as you do this, Mr. President".
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Jan 19, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The war for dominance in the Middle East, following the destruction of ISIS, appears about to commence in Syria -- with NATO allies America and Turkey on opposing sides. Turkey is moving armor and troops south to Syria's border enclave of Afrin, occupied by the Kurds, to drive them out, and then drive the Syrian Kurds out of Manbij further south as well. Says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "We will destroy all terror nests, one by one, in Syria, starting from Afrin and Manbij." For Erdogan, the Kurdish YPG, the major U.S. ally in Syria, is an arm of the Kurdish PKK in Turkey, which we and the Turks have designated as a terrorist organization. While the Kurds were our most effective allies against ISIS in Syria, Turkey views them as a mortal peril and intends to deal with that threat. If Erdogan is serious, a clash with the United States is coming, as our Kurdish allies occupy most of Syria's border with Turkey.Moreover, the U.S. has announced plans to create a 30,000-man Border Security Force of Kurds and Arabs to keep ISIS out of Syria. Erdogan has branded this BSF a "terror army," and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has called BSF members "traitors." This U.S. plan to create a BSF inside Syria, Damascus declares, "represents a blatant attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity and unity of Syria, and a flagrant violation of international law."
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Dec 22, 2017 | www.unz.com
What makes a Harvey Weinstein moment? The now-disgraced Hollywood mogul is hardly the first powerful man to stand accused of having abused women. The Harveys who preceded Harvey himself are legion, their prominence matching or exceeding his own and the misdeeds with which they were charged at least as reprehensible.
In the relatively recent past, a roster of prominent offenders would include Bill Clinton, Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, and, of course, Donald Trump. Throw in various jocks, maestros, senior military officers, members of the professoriate and you end up with quite a list. Yet in virtually all such cases, the alleged transgressions were treated as instances of individual misconduct, egregious perhaps but possessing at best transitory political resonance.
All that, though, was pre-Harvey. As far as male sexual hijinks are concerned, we might compare Weinstein's epic fall from grace to the stock market crash of 1929: one week it's the anything-goes Roaring Twenties, the next we're smack dab in a Great Depression.
How profound is the change? Up here in Massachusetts where I live, we've spent the past year marking John F. Kennedy's 100th birthday. If Kennedy were still around to join in the festivities, it would be as a Class A sex offender. Rarely in American history has the cultural landscape shifted so quickly or so radically.
In our post-Harvey world, men charged with sexual misconduct are guilty until proven innocent, all crimes are capital offenses, and there exists no statute of limitations. Once a largely empty corporate slogan, "zero tolerance" has become a battle cry.
All of this serves as a reminder that, on some matters at least, the American people retain an admirable capacity for outrage. We can distinguish between the tolerable and the intolerable. And we can demand accountability of powerful individuals and institutions.
Everything They Need to Win (Again!)
What's puzzling is why that capacity for outrage and demand for accountability doesn't extend to our now well-established penchant for waging war across much of the planet.
In no way would I wish to minimize the pain, suffering, and humiliation of the women preyed upon by the various reprobates now getting their belated comeuppance. But to judge from published accounts, the women (and in some cases, men) abused by Weinstein, Louis C.K., Mark Halperin, Leon Wieseltier, Kevin Spacey, Al Franken, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, my West Point classmate Judge Roy Moore, and their compadres at least managed to survive their encounters. None of the perpetrators are charged with having committed murder. No one died.
Compare their culpability to that of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or promoted this country's various military misadventures of the present century. Those wars have, of course, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will ultimately cost American taxpayers many trillions of dollars. Nor have those costly military efforts eliminated "terrorism," as President George W. Bush promised back when today's G.I.s were still in diapers.
Bush told us that, through war, the United States would spread freedom and democracy. Instead, our wars have sown disorder and instability, creating failing or failed states across the Greater Middle East and Africa. In their wake have sprung up ever more, not fewer, jihadist groups, while acts of terror are soaring globally. These are indisputable facts.
It discomfits me to reiterate this mournful litany of truths. I feel a bit like the doctor telling the lifelong smoker with stage-four lung cancer that an addiction to cigarettes is adversely affecting his health. His mute response: I know and I don't care. Nothing the doc says is going to budge the smoker from his habit. You go through the motions, but wonder why.
In a similar fashion, war has become a habit to which the United States is addicted. Except for the terminally distracted, most of us know that. We also know -- we cannot not know -- that, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. forces have been unable to accomplish their assigned mission, despite more than 16 years of fighting in the former and more than a decade in the latter.
It's not exactly a good news story, to put it mildly. So forgive me for saying it ( yet again ), but most of us simply don't care, which means that we continue to allow a free hand to those who preside over those wars, while treating with respect the views of pundits and media personalities who persist in promoting them. What's past doesn't count; we prefer to sustain the pretense that tomorrow is pregnant with possibilities. Victory lies just around the corner.
By way of example, consider a recent article in U.S. News and World Report. The headline: "Victory or Failure in Afghanistan: 2018 Will Be the Deciding Year." The title suggests a balance absent from the text that follows, which reads like a Pentagon press release. Here in its entirety is the nut graf (my own emphasis added):
"Armed with a new strategy and renewed support from old allies, the Trump administration now believes it has everything it needs to win the war in Afghanistan. Top military advisers all the way up to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis say they can accomplish what two previous administrations and multiple troop surges could not: the defeat of the Taliban by Western-backed local forces, a negotiated peace and the establishment of a popularly supported government in Kabul capable of keeping the country from once again becoming a haven to any terrorist group."
Now if you buy this, you'll believe that Harvey Weinstein has learned his lesson and can be trusted to interview young actresses while wearing his bathrobe.
For starters, there is no "new strategy." Trump's generals, apparently with a nod from their putative boss, are merely modifying the old "strategy," which was itself an outgrowth of previous strategies tried, found wanting, and eventually discarded before being rebranded and eventually recycled.
Short of using nuclear weapons, U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan over the past decade and a half have experimented with just about every approach imaginable: invasion, regime change, occupation, nation-building, pacification, decapitation, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency, not to mention various surges , differing in scope and duration. We have had a big troop presence and a smaller one, more bombing and less, restrictive rules of engagement and permissive ones. In the military equivalent of throwing in the kitchen sink, a U.S. Special Operations Command four-engine prop plane recently deposited the largest non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal on a cave complex in eastern Afghanistan. Although that MOAB made a big boom, no offer of enemy surrender materialized.
$65 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. And under the circumstances, consider that a mere down payment.
According to General John Nicholson, our 17th commander in Kabul since 2001, the efforts devised and implemented by his many predecessors have resulted in a "stalemate" -- a generous interpretation given that the Taliban presently controls more territory than it has held since the U.S. invasion. Officers no less capable than Nicholson himself, David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal among them, didn't get it done. Nicholson's argument: trust me.
In essence, the "new strategy" devised by Trump's generals, Secretary of Defense Mattis and Nicholson among them, amounts to this: persist a tad longer with a tad more. A modest uptick in the number of U.S. and allied troops on the ground will provide more trainers, advisers, and motivators to work with and accompany their Afghan counterparts in the field. The Mattis/Nicholson plan also envisions an increasing number of air strikes, signaled by the recent use of B-52s to attack illicit Taliban " drug labs ," a scenario that Stanley Kubrick himself would have been hard-pressed to imagine.
Notwithstanding the novelty of using strategic bombers to destroy mud huts, there's not a lot new here. Dating back to 2001, coalition forces have already dropped tens of thousands of bombs in Afghanistan. Almost as soon as the Taliban were ousted from Kabul, coalition efforts to create effective Afghan security forces commenced. So, too, did attempts to reduce the production of the opium that has funded the Taliban insurgency, alas with essentially no effect whatsoever . What Trump's generals want a gullible public (and astonishingly gullible and inattentive members of Congress) to believe is that this time they've somehow devised a formula for getting it right.
Turning the Corner
With his trademark capacity to intuit success, President Trump already sees clear evidence of progress. "We're not fighting anymore to just walk around," he remarked in his Thanksgiving message to the troops. "We're fighting to win. And you people [have] turned it around over the last three to four months like nobody has seen." The president, we may note, has yet to visit Afghanistan.
I'm guessing that the commander-in-chief is oblivious to the fact that, in U.S. military circles, the term winning has acquired notable elasticity. Trump may think that it implies vanquishing the enemy -- white flags and surrender ceremonies on the U.S.S. Missouri . General Nicholson knows better. "Winning," the field commander says , "means delivering a negotiated settlement that reduces the level of violence and protecting the homeland." (Take that definition at face value and we can belatedly move Vietnam into the win column!)
Should we be surprised that Trump's generals, unconsciously imitating General William Westmoreland a half-century ago, claim once again to detect light at the end of the tunnel? Not at all. Mattis and Nicholson (along with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster) are following the Harvey Weinstein playbook: keep doing it until they make you stop. Indeed, with what can only be described as chutzpah, Nicholson himself recently announced that we have " turned the corner " in Afghanistan. In doing so, of course, he is counting on Americans not to recall the various war managers, military and civilian alike, who have made identical claims going back years now, among them Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2012 .
From on high, assurances of progress; in the field, results that, year after year, come nowhere near what's promised; on the homefront, an astonishingly credulous public. The war in Afghanistan has long since settled into a melancholy and seemingly permanent rhythm.
The fact is that the individuals entrusted by President Trump to direct U.S. policy believe with iron certainty that difficult political problems will yield to armed might properly employed. That proposition is one to which generals like Mattis and Nicholson have devoted a considerable part of their lives, not just in Afghanistan but across much of the Islamic world. They are no more likely to question the validity of that proposition than the Pope is to entertain second thoughts about the divinity of Jesus Christ.
In Afghanistan, their entire worldview -- not to mention the status and clout of the officer corps they represent -- is at stake. No matter how long the war there lasts, no matter how many " generations " it takes, no matter how much blood is shed to no purpose, and no matter how much money is wasted, they will never admit to failure -- nor will any of the militarists-in-mufti cheering them on from the sidelines in Washington, Donald Trump not the least among them.
Meanwhile, the great majority of the American people, their attention directed elsewhere -- it's the season for holiday shopping, after all -- remain studiously indifferent to the charade being played out before their eyes.
It took a succession of high-profile scandals before Americans truly woke up to the plague of sexual harassment and assault. How long will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that don't work? Here's hoping it's before our president, in a moment of ill temper, unleashes " fire and fury " on the world.
Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular , is the author, most recently, of America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History .
anonymous , Disclaimer December 11, 2017 at 3:31 am GMT
It's astonishing to see people make the claim that "victory" is possible in Afghanistan. Could they actually believe this or are they lying in order to drag this out even longer and keep the money pit working overtime? These are individuals that are highly placed and so should know better. It's not really a war but an occupation with the native insurgents fighting to oust the foreign occupier. The US has tried every trick there is in trying to tamp down the insurgency. They know what we're trying to do and can thwart us at every step. The US lost even as it began it's invasion there but didn't know it yet in the wake of it's initial success in scattering the Taliban, not even a real army and not even a real state. They live there and we don't; they can resist for the next thirty years or fifty years. When does the multi-billion bill come due and how will we pay it?Issac , December 12, 2017 at 4:07 am GMT"How long will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that don't work?"USAMNESIA , December 14, 2017 at 3:32 am GMTIt already happened, but Progressives like you failed to note that Republican voters subbed the Bush clan and their various associates for Trump in the Primary season, precisely because he called the Iraq and Afghan wars mistakes. The Americans suffer under a two party establishment that is clearly antagonistic to their interests. As a part of that regime, a dutiful Progressive toad, you continue to peddle the lie that it was the war-weary White Americans who celebrated those wars. In reality, any such support was ginned up from tools like you who wrote puff pieces for their Neocon Progressive masters.
Thus far, Trump's interventionism has been a fragment of what the Hillary campaign promised. Might you count that among your lucky stars? Fat chance. You cretinous Progressive filth have no such spine upon which to base an independent thought. You trot out the same old tiresome tropes week after week fulfilling your designated propagandist duty and then you skulk back to your den of iniquity to prepare another salvo of agitprop. What a miserable existence.
This is the center of a world empire. It maintains a gigantic military which virtually never stops fighting wars, none of them having anything to do with defense. It has created an intelligence monstrosity which makes old outfits like Stazi seem almost quaint, and it spies on everyone. Indeed, it maintains seventeen national security establishments, as though you can never have too much of a good thing. And some of these guys, too, are engaged full-time in forms of covert war, from fomenting trouble in other lands and interfering in elections to overthrowing governments.nsa , December 18, 2017 at 5:36 am GMTObama ended up killing more people than any dictator or demagogue of this generation on earth you care to name, several hundred thousand of them in his eight years. And he found new ways to kill, too, as by creating the world's first industrial-scale extrajudicial killing operation. Here he signs off on "kill lists," placed in his Oval Office in-box, to murder people he has never seen, people who enjoy no legal rights or protections. His signed orders are carried out by uniformed thugs working at computer screens in secure basements where they proceed to play computer games with real live humans as their targets, again killing or maiming people they have never seen.
If you ever have wondered where all the enabling workers came from in places like Stalin's Gulag or Hitler's concentration camps, well, here is your answer. American itself produces platoons of such people. You could find them working at Guantanamo and in the far-flung string of secret torture facilities the CIA ran for years, and you could find them in places like Fallujah or Samarra or Abu Ghraib, at the CIA's basement game arcade killing centers, and even all over the streets of America dressed as police who shoot unarmed people every day, sometimes in the back.
ZOG has now asserted the right to kill anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. No trial, no hearing, no witnesses, no defense, no nothing. Is this actually legal? Any constitutional lawyers out there care to comment? Has ZOG now achieved the status of an all-powerful all-knowing deity with the power of life and death over all living things?Waiting too , December 18, 2017 at 10:36 am GMTIt's unlikely that the USA would be remaining in Afghanistan if its goals were not being attained. So the author has merely shown that the stated goals cannot be the real goals. What then are the real goals? I propose two: 1) establish a permanent military presence on a Russian border; 2) finance it with the heroin trade. Given other actions of the Empire around the globe, the first goal is obvious. The bombing of mud huts containing competitors' drug labs, conjoined with the fact that we do not destroy the actual poppy fields (obvious green targets in an immense ocean of brown) make this goal rather obvious as well. The rest of the article is simply more evidence that the Empire does not include mere human tragedy in its profit calculation.War for Blair Mountain , December 18, 2017 at 1:09 pm GMT5.6 TRILLION $$$$$$ FOR GULF WAR 1 AND GULF WAR 2DESERT FOX , December 18, 2017 at 1:43 pm GMTThe Native Born White American Working Class Teenage Male Population used as CANNON FODDER for Congressman Steven Solarz's and Donald Trump's very precious Jewish only Israel .
WAR IS A RACKET!!!! don't you think?
Israel and the deep state did the attack on 911 and thus set the table for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Syria and the Zionist neocons who control every facet of the U.S. gov and the MSM and the MIC and the FED ie the BANKS set in motion the blood sacrifice for their Zionist god SATAN, that is what they have done.Michael Kenny , December 18, 2017 at 2:17 pm GMTThe Zionist warmongers and Satanists will destroy America.
It's not so much that America is addicted to war as that the American "business model" makes permanent war inevitable. US global dominance rests on economic domination, in particular, the dollar as world reserve currency. That has allowed the US economy to survive in spite of being hollowed out, financialised and burdened with enormous sovereign debt. Economic dominance derives from political dominance, which, in its turn, flows from military dominance. For that military dominance to be credible, not only must the US have the biggest and best military forces on the planet, it must show itself willing to use those forces to maintain its dominance by actually using them from time to time, in particular, to unequivocally beat off any challenge to its dominance (Putin!). It also, of course, must win, or, more correctly, be able to present the outcome credibly as a win. Failure to maintain military dominance will undermine the position of the dollar, sending its value through the floor. A low dollar means cheap exports (Boeing will sell more planes than Airbus!), but it also means that imports (oil, outsourced goods) will be dear. At that point the hollowed out nature of the US economy will cut in, probably provoking a Soviet-style implosion of the US economy and society and ruining anyone who has holdings denominated in dollars. I call that the Gorbachev conundrum. Gorby believed in the Soviet Union and wanted to reform it. But the Soviet system had become so rigid as to be unreformable. He pulled a threat and the whole system unravelled. But if he hadn't pulled the thread, the whole system would have unravelled anyway. It was a choice between hard landing and harder landing. Similarly, US leaders have to continue down the only road open to them: permanent war. As Thomas Jefferson said of slavery, it's like holding a wolf by the ears. You don't like it but you don't dare let go!TG , December 18, 2017 at 2:36 pm GMT"How long will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that don't work?" Answer: Never.Intelligent Dasein , Website December 18, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMTIn Alabama when people would rant about how toxic Roy Moore was, I would politely point out that his opponent for Senate was OK with spending trillions of dollars fighting pointless winless wars on the other side of the planet just so politically connected defense contractors can make a buck, and ask if that should be an issue too? The response, predictably, was as if I was an alien from the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda.
We are sheep. We are outraged at these sexual transgressions because the corporate press tells us to be outraged. We are not outraged at these stupid foreign wars, because the corporate press does not tell us to be outraged. It's all mass effect, and the comfort of being in a herd and all expressing the same feelings.
Andrew Bacevich is wrong about a couple of things in this article.Ilyana_Rozumova , December 18, 2017 at 3:04 pm GMTFirst, he says that the American public is both apathetic and credulous. I agree that we have largely become apathetic towards these imperial wars, but I disagree that we have become credulous. In fact, these two states of mind exclude one another; you cannot be both apathetic and credulous with respect to the same object at the same time. The credulity charge is easy to dismiss because virtually no one today believes anything that comes out of Washington or its mouthpieces in the legacy media. The apathy charge is on point but it needs qualification. The smarter, more informed Americans have seen that their efforts to change the course of American policy have been to no avail, and they've given up in frustration and disgust. The less smart, less informed Americans are constrained by the necessity of getting on with their meager lives; they are an apolitical mass that possesses neither the understanding nor the capacity to make any difference on the policy front whatsoever.
Second, Andrew Bacevich calls for a Weinstein moment without realizing that it already happened more than ten years ago. The 2006 midterm elections were the first Weinstein moment, which saw the American people deliver a huge outpouring of antiwar sentiment that inflicted significant congressional losses on the neocon Republicans of George W. Bush. An echo of that groundswell happened again in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected to office on an explicitly antiwar platform. But Obama turned out to be one of the most pro-war presidents ever, and thus an angry electorate made one final push in the same direction by attempting to clean house with Donald Trump. Now that Donald has shown every sign of having cucked out to the war lobby, we seem to be left with no electoral solutions.
The only thing that's going to work is for the American Imperium to be handed a much-deserved military and financial defeat. The one encouraging fact is that if the top ten percent of our political and financial elite were planed off by a foreign power, the American people would give as few damns about that as they currently do about our imperial wars.
@Michael KennyAnonymous , Disclaimer December 18, 2017 at 3:17 pm GMTVery good but some little errors. Concerning Russia and China, Russia vent all or nothing. China was much smarter. First they allowed self employment, than small business and long time after they started to sell state enterprises,
If Tom's Dispatch continues to be successful, Americans will continue to be asleep.nebulafox , December 18, 2017 at 4:00 pm GMTMasterful propaganda. War, according to our favorite spooks, is necessary to win, but otherwise reprehensible.
Sex is otherwise necessary for human life but Harvey Weinstein is ugly. Hold tightly to your cognitive dissonance, because you're expected to remember John F Kennedy who got it on, but is the expendable martyr you should care about, not that other guy
Let's review: terror attacks are wins. Superior or effective anti-war propaganda comes from the military
itself. They really don't want war, but really they do.@anonymousnebulafox , December 18, 2017 at 4:08 pm GMTWe're trying to make Afghanistan not Afghanistan: aka, trying to be a miracle worker. We can throw as much money as we like at that place, and it isn't going to happen, least of all with troops on nine month shifts.
Let Iran and Pakistan squabble over it. Good riddance.
@Waiting tooAnonymous , Disclaimer December 18, 2017 at 4:28 pm GMT1) doesn't really make much sense, given that Poland and the Baltic States would be more than happy to take all US forces in Europe to give us a presence near Russia in a part of the world that would be far easier to justify to the American public-and to the international community. Afghanistan? Who exactly is Russia going to mess with? Iran is their-for now, longer term, the two have conflicting agendas in the region, but don't expect the geniuses in the Beltway to pick up on that opportunity-ally, and unlike the USSR, the Russians don't want to get involved in the India-Pakistan conflict. Russia's current tilt toward China makes a strategic marriage with India of the kind that you found in the Cold War impossible, but they obviously don't want to tilt toward the basketcase known as Pakistan. The only reason that Russia would want to get involved with Afghanistan beyond having a more preferable status than having American troops there is power projection among ex-Soviet states, and there are far more effective ways to do than muddle about with Afghanistan.
2, on the other hand, given Iran-Contra who knows? The first generation of the Taliban pretty much wiped the heroin trade out as offensive to Islamic sensibilities, but the newer generations have no such qualms.
I think you give America's rulers far too much credit. The truth is probably far scarier: the morons who work in the Beltway honestly believe their own propaganda-that we can make Afghanistan into some magical Western democracy if we throw enough money at it-and combine that with the usual bureaucratic inertia.
@Waiting tooArt , December 18, 2017 at 4:45 pm GMTAnother bonus is that Afghan heroin seeps into Russia and wreaks havoc in the regions bordering Afghanistan -- krokodil and all that.
According to General John Nicholson, our 17th commander in Kabul since 2001,MarkinLA , December 18, 2017 at 5:59 pm GMTWe have been killing these people for 17 years. Now our generals say that if we indiscriminately kill enough men, women, and children who get in the way of our B52s, that they will see the light and make peace. How totally wonderful.
My solution is to gage the Lindsey Grahams for a year.
What will do more good for peace – B52s or shutting up Graham's elk?
Think Peace -- Art
I remember when Trump said he knew more than the generals and was viciously attacked for it. It turns out he did know more than the generals just by knowing it was a waste. Trump was pushed by politics to defer to the generals who always have an answer when it comes to a war – more men, more weapons, more time.Sollipsist , December 18, 2017 at 6:20 pm GMT@Intelligent DaseinpeterAUS , December 18, 2017 at 6:46 pm GMT"The less smart, less informed Americans are constrained by the necessity of getting on with their meager lives; they are an apolitical mass that possesses neither the understanding nor the capacity to make any difference on the policy front whatsoever."
I wonder if any Abolitionists criticized the slaves for failing to revolt? Probably not; I'm guessing they were mostly convinced that the negro required intervention from outside, whether due to their nature or from overwhelming circumstance.
If the enslaved American public is liberated, I hope we'll know what to do with ourselves afterwards. It'd be a shame to simply end up in another kind of bondage, resentful and subject to whatever oppressive system replaces the current outrage. Perhaps the next one will more persuasively convince us that we're important and essential?
@Michael KennypeterAUS , December 18, 2017 at 6:47 pm GMTAgree.
Very good post, IMHO.That phrase "a choice between hard landing and harder landing" is good and can be easily applied to USA today.
Interesting times.
@TGSowhat , December 18, 2017 at 7:29 pm GMTAgree.
This is well written, IMHO:We are sheep. We are outraged at these sexual transgressions because the corporate press tells us to be outraged. We are not outraged at these stupid foreign wars, because the corporate press does not tell us to be outraged. It's all mass effect, and the comfort of being in a herd and all expressing the same feelings.
Thank you, Andrew J. Bacevich, for your words of wisdom and thank you, Mr. Unz, for this post.Delinquent Snail , December 18, 2017 at 8:57 pm GMT
This corporation needs to be dissolved. I've read about "the inertia" of Federal Government that has morphed into a cash cow for a century of wasted tax dollars funding the MIIC, now the MIIC. Does our existence have to end in financial ruin or, worse yet, some foreign entity creating havoc on our soil?
The Founders NEVER intended that the US of A become a meddler in other Sovereignty's internal affairs or the destroyer of Nation States that do not espoused our "doctrine." Anyone without poop for brains knows that this is about Imperialism and greed, fueled by money and an insatiable luster for MORE.
This should be easier to change than it appears. Is there no will? After all, it Is our Master's money that lubricates the machinery. So, we continue to provide the lubrication for our Masters like a bunch of imbeciles that allow them to survail our words and movements. Somebody please explain our stupidity.@nebulafoxjoe webb , December 18, 2017 at 8:58 pm GMTIf americans would just go all in and commit genocide. That would lead to victory.
No afgans, no enemy.
the folks in the US are sick of the wars, contrary to Bacevich. They simply will vote come next election accordingly. They register their disgust in all the polls.Jim Christian , December 18, 2017 at 9:07 pm GMTThis article is not very useful. More punditry puff.
No comments on the Next War for Israel being cooked up by the new crop of neocon youngsters, I guess, and Trump who will trump, trump, trump into the next War for the Jews.
How about some political science on Iran, Syria, Hisbollah, Hamas and the US, Arabia, Judenstaat axis of evil?
Joe Webb
Hey Bacevich? When you link to WashPost and NYTimes to make your points, you don't. They block access if you've already read links to those two papers three times each and can no longer, for the month, read there. When folks link to papers that won't let you read, it makes one wonder why.Simply Simon , December 18, 2017 at 10:26 pm GMTI believe Americans are damned sick and tired of the stupid, needless war in Afghanistan. But then they should have been sick and tired of stupid , needless wars like Korea, Vietnam and Iraq, and probably most of them were. But it's easy to be complacent when someone else's son is doing the fighting and dying And it's easy to be complacent when your stomach is full and you have plenty of booze and pain killers available. There will be a day of reckoning when the next big economic bust arrives and which may make the Great Depression paltry by comparison. America is a far different place then it was in the 1930s when our population was 140 million. Americans were not so soft and the conveniences we now take for granted not available. When the supermarkets run out of food, watch out. There may not even be any soup lines to stand in.Joe Franklin , December 18, 2017 at 11:21 pm GMTDruid , December 19, 2017 at 12:41 am GMTIn truth, U.S. commanders have quietly shelved any expectations of achieving an actual victory -- traditionally defined as "imposing your will on the enemy" -- in favor of a more modest conception of success.
Your assumptions are wrong about the US goal of the invasion of Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Iraq were not invaded to establish democracy or impose American will whatever that is. Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded to establish a temporary military staging ground for a US invasion of Iran, the designated regional enemy of Israel. As long as the current regime in Iran remains, the US will remain in Iraq and Afghanistan.
... ... ...
@Waiting tooanno nimus , December 19, 2017 at 1:53 am GMTAnd minerals! Eric Prince himself recently tried to sell the idea of having his private militias do the fighting in Afghanistan for the US and finance it by mining said country's minerals, thus making himself even richer.
"i can live without a friend, but not without an enemy."Cloak And Dagger , December 19, 2017 at 5:03 am GMT@SolontoCroesusJoe Wong , December 20, 2017 at 2:25 pm GMTI was onboard with Mr. Bacevich, until I got to this:
Almost as soon as the Taliban were ousted from Kabul, coalition efforts to create effective Afghan security forces commenced. So, too, did attempts to reduce the production of the opium that has funded the Taliban insurgency
What utter rubbish! The Taliban was instrumental in shutting down the poppy production until the CIA came along and restarted it to fund their black ops.
We have the reverse Midas touch. Everything we touch (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc., etc.) turns to shit. We supposedly attack countries to liberate them from their tyrants who are supposedly killing their own people, and end up killing more people than all of them put together. And, oh yes, we have our favorite tyrants (Saudis, Israelis) whom we provide with horrible weapons (like cluster bombs) to help them kill people we hate.
Mr. Bacevich is right about the lack of outrage about our wars, but the current Weinstein explosion consists of hordes of mostly American female victims, mostly white, a (very) few jews, and a few men, who have the stage to complain about their oppressors. What would be the counterpart of that w.r.t. the wars? Millions of brown victims in far away lands that most of us couldn't even find on a map? How likely is that to happen?
So yes, no outrage, and none likely. The last 17 years have proven that.
@anonymousYou don't know the American has been paying everything through monopoly money printed through the thin air since WWI, i.e. a keystroke on the Federal Reserve's computer? No wonder the Americans have been waging reckless wars all over the world on the fabricated phantom WMD allegations as humanitarian intervention relentlessly.
Romans did not stop waging reckless wars until their empire collapsed; the British imitates the Romans and the American is born out of the British, hence the Americans will no stop waging reckless wars until their empire collapsed like the Romans.
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Jul 01, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
NemesisCalling | Jun 30, 2017 8:21:54 PM | 31
For all the haters of us ugly Americans, just remember that we at this blog are suffering in our country standing up for the truth, pitted against our neighbors, coworkers, and friends in the arena of political debate and decrying the massive injustice of our foreign aggression.lex.talionis | Jun 30, 2017 9:14:01 PM | 36I won't call ya out by name, but lumping us forlorn sacks into your "untouchable" category reeks of reactionary arrogance that is, to pay patrons at this fine blog their due, beneath you.
In the mean time, American issues = issues concerning the empire they we all want to see destroyed. Liberating Americans should also be on your wish list.
Amen @31The world knows the military industrial complex that has worked over years, and year to create the ugly tentacles throughout what was once our government has been usurped. Dollars. All these bastards see is dollars. Not human life. Not the potential of that lost life in science, math, technology. Just dollars.
For heavens sakes the voters in Arizona returned the worst of ALL Warmongers to Congress. And you, the World, think for a moment we, citizens in this colony, have a snowball's chance in hell reeling these creatures in all by ourselves are sorely mistaken.
We can't even get the voters to learn that their votes equal WAR pushed by both Parties they are aligned with. Get real. Our challenge is yours. Help us!
h | Jun 30, 2017 8:38:56 PM | 32
@Nemesis
Well said...!
I know there are many highly intelligent Americans, who are already today suffering and paying a price. And I agree that (widespread) anti-American sentiment is as stupid and reactionary as any other form of nationalism. It's just another 'divide and rule' ideology to keep ordinary people at each others' throats, rather than see them united against their common enemy, the global so-called 'elite'/ oligarchs.
Playing groups of people against one another is the oldest domination trick in the world, but it seems to work every single time...sad! ;-)
smuks | Jun 30, 2017 8:50:51 PM | 35
@ Nemesis and all,
I'm from California. Technically the USA. My take on things is we United States of Americans are exceptional. Most of us are exceptionally ignorant and violent. That is exceptionally sad.
I am very glad to have found MoA and the crew of experts. I have learned so very much.
Big up b! Booyakah as they say in JA. God help us.
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Ghost Ship , Dec 27, 2017 10:17:37 AM | 92
Posted by: Oriental Voice | Dec 26, 2017 3:56:16 PM | 35On your surmise that Putin prefers Trump to Hillary and would thus have incentive to influence the election, I beg to differ. Putin is one smart statesman; he knows very well it makes no difference which candidates gets elected in US elections.I accept your point that the Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same coin, but it's important to understand that Putin is deeply conservative and very risk averse.
Hillary Clinton may be a threat to Russia but she knows the "rules" and is very predictable, while Trump doesn't know the rules and appears to act on a whim , so if Putin were to have interfered in the 2016 presidential election, logic would suggest that he would do so on Hillary Clinton's side. However, given the problems that Hillary Clinton had to overcome to get elected, backing her against Trump would be risky. So the highly risk averse Putin would logically stay out of the election entirely and all the claims of Russia hacking the election are fake news.
As for the alleged media campaign, my response is "so what!". Western media, including state-owned media, interferes around the world all the time so complaining about Russian state-owned media doing the same is pure hypocrisy and should be ignored.
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Dec 18, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com
Deep State's "Insurance Policy" Tyler Durden Dec 18, 2017 11:05 PM 0 SHARES Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,
There was a sinister plot to meddle in the 2016 election, after all. But it was not orchestrated from the Kremlin; it was an entirely homegrown affair conducted from the inner sanctums---the White House, DOJ, the Hoover Building and Langley----of the Imperial City.
Likewise, the perpetrators didn't speak Russian or write in the Cyrillic script. In fact, they were lifetime beltway insiders occupying the highest positions of power in the US government.
Here are the names and rank of the principal conspirators:
- John Brennan, CIA director;
- Susan Rice, National Security Advisor;
- Samantha Power, UN Ambassador;
- James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence;
- James Comey, FBI director;
- Andrew McCabe, Deputy FBI director;
- Sally Yates, deputy Attorney General,
- Bruce Ohr, associate deputy AG;
- Peter Strzok, deputy assistant director of FBI counterintelligence;
- Lisa Page, FBI lawyer;
- and countless other lessor and greater poobahs of Washington power, including President Obama himself.
To a person, the participants in this illicit cabal shared the core trait that made Obama such a blight on the nation's well-being. To wit, he never held an honest job outside the halls of government in his entire adult life; and as a careerist agent of the state and practitioner of its purported goods works, he exuded a sanctimonious disdain for everyday citizens who make their living along the capitalist highways and by-ways of America.
The above cast of election-meddlers, of course, comes from the same mold. If Wikipedia is roughly correct, just these 10 named perpetrators have punched in about 300 years of post-graduate employment---and 260 of those years (87%) were on government payrolls or government contractor jobs.
As to whether they shared Obama's political class arrogance, Peter Strzok left nothing to the imagination in his now celebrated texts to his gal-pal, Lisa Page:
"Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support......I LOATHE congress....And F Trump."
You really didn't need the ALL CAPS to get the gist. In a word, the anti-Trump cabal is comprised of creatures of the state.
Their now obvious effort to alter the outcome of the 2016 election was nothing less than the Imperial City's immune system attacking an alien threat, which embodied the very opposite trait: That is, the Donald had never spent one moment on the state's payroll, had been elected to no government office and displayed a spirited contempt for the groupthink and verities of officialdom in the Imperial City.
But it is the vehemence and flagrant transparency of this conspiracy to prevent Trump's ascension to the Oval Office that reveals the profound threat to capitalism and democracy posed by the Deep State and its prosperous elites and fellow travelers domiciled in the Imperial City.
That is to say, Donald Trump was no kind of anti-statist and only a skin-deep populist, at best. His signature anti-immigrant meme was apparently discovered by accident when in the early days of the campaign he went off on Mexican thugs, rapists and murderers----only to find that it resonated strongly among a certain element of the GOP grass roots.
But a harsh line on immigrants, refugees and Muslims would not have incited the Deep State into an attempted coup d'état; it wouldn't have mobilized so overtly against Ted Cruz, for example, whose positions on the ballyhooed terrorist/immigrant threat were not much different.
No, what sent the Imperial City establishment into a fit of apoplexy was exactly two things that struck at the core of its raison d' etre.
First was Trump's stated intentions to seek rapprochement with Putin's Russia and his sensible embrace of a non-interventionist "America First" view of Washington's role in the world. And secondly, and even more importantly, was his very persona.
That is to say, the role of today's president is to function as the suave, reliable maître d' of the Imperial City and the lead spokesman for Washington's purported good works at home and abroad. And for that role the slovenly, loud-mouthed, narcissistic, bombastic, ill-informed and crudely-mannered Donald Trump was utterly unqualified.
Stated differently, welfare statism and warfare statism is the secular religion of the Imperial City and its collaborators in the mainstream media; and the Oval Office is the bully pulpit from which its catechisms, bromides and self-justifications are propagandized to the unwashed masses---the tax-and-debt-slaves of Flyover America who bear the burden of its continuation.
Needless to say, the Never Trumpers were eminently correct in their worry that Trump would sully, degrade and weaken the Imperial Presidency. That he has done in spades with his endless tweet storms that consist mainly of petty score settling, self-justification, unseemly boasting and shrill partisanship; and on top of that you can pile his impetuous attacks on friend, foe and bystanders (e.g. NFL kneelers) alike.
Yet that is exactly what has the Deep State and its media collaborators running scared. To wit, Trump's entire modus operandi is not about governing or a serious policy agenda---and most certainly not about Making America's Economy Great Again. (MAEGA)
By appointing a passel of Keynesian monetary central planners to the Fed and launching an orgy of fiscal recklessness via his massive defense spending and tax-cutting initiatives, the Donald has more than sealed his own doom: There will unavoidably be a massive financial and economic crisis in the years just ahead and the rulers of the Imperial City will most certainly heap the blame upon him with malice aforethought.
In the interim, however, what the Donald is actually doing is sharply polarizing the country and using the Bully Pulpit for the very opposite function assigned to it by Washington's permanent political class. Namely, to discredit and vilify the ruling elites of government and the media and thereby undermine the docility and acquiescence of the unwashed masses upon which the Imperial City's rule and hideous prosperity depend.
It is no wonder, then, that the inner circle of the Obama Administration plotted an "insurance policy". They saw it coming-----that is, an offensive rogue disrupter who was soft on Russia, to boot--- and out of that alarm the entire hoax of RussiaGate was born.
As is now well known from the recent dump of 375 Strzok/Gates text messages, there occurred on August 15, 2016 a meeting in the office of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe (who is still there) to kick off the RussiaGate campaign. As Strzok later wrote to Page, who was also at the meeting:
" I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk......It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event that you die before you're 40."
They will try to spin this money quote seven-ways to Sunday, but in the context of everything else now known there is only one possible meaning: The national security and law enforcement machinery of Imperial Washington was being activated then and there in behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Indeed, the trail of proof is quite clear. At the very time of this August meeting, the FBI was already being fed the initial elements of the Steele dossier, and the latter had nothing to do with any kind of national security investigation.
For crying out loud, it was plain old "oppo research" paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. And the only way that it bore on Russian involvement in the US election was that virtually all of the salacious material and false narratives about Trump emissaries meeting with high level Russian officials was disinformation sourced in Moscow, and was completely untrue.
As former senior FBI official, Andrew McCarthy, neatly summarized the sequence of action recently:
The Clinton campaign generated the Steele dossier through lawyers who retained Fusion GPS. Fusion, in turn, hired Steele, a former British intelligence agent who had FBI contacts from prior collaborative investigations. The dossier was steered into the FBI's hands as it began to be compiled in the summer of 2016. A Fusion Russia expert, Nellie Ohr, worked with Steele on Fusion's anti-Trump research. She is the wife of Bruce Ohr, then the deputy associate attorney general -- the top subordinate of Sally Yates, then Obama's deputy attorney general (later acting AG). Ohr was a direct pipeline to Yates.....
Based on the publication this week of text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the FBI lawyer with whom he was having an extramarital affair, we have learned of a meeting convened in the office of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe...... right around the time the Page FISA warrant was obtained......
Bruce Ohr met personally with Steele. And after Trump was elected, according to Fusion founder Glenn Simpson, he requested and got a meeting with Simpson to, as Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee, "discuss our findings regarding Russia and the election."
This, of course, was the precise time Democrats began peddling the public narrative of Trump-Russia collusion. It is the time frame during which Ohr's boss, Yates, was pushing an absurd Logan Act investigation of Trump transition official Michael Flynn (then slotted to become Trump's national-security adviser) over Flynn's meetings with the Russian ambassador.
Here's the thing. There is almost nothing in the Steele dossiers which is true. At the same time, there is no real alternative evidence based on hard NSA intercepts that show Russian government agents were behind the only two acts----the leaks of the DNC emails and the Podesta emails----that were of even minimal import to the outcome of the 2016 presidential campaign.
As to the veracity of the dossier, the raving anti-Trumper and former CIA interim chief, Michael Morrell, settled the matter. If you are paying ex-FSA agents for information on the back streets of Moscow, the more you pay, the more "information" you will get:
Then I asked myself, why did these guys provide this information, what was their motivation? And I subsequently learned that he paid them. That the intermediaries paid the sources and the intermediaries got the money from Chris. And that kind of worries me a little bit because if you're paying somebody, particularly former [Russian Federal Security Service] officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and they're going to call you up and say, 'Hey, let's have another meeting, I have more information for you,' because they want to get paid some more,' Morrell said.
Far from being "verified," the dossier is best described as a pack of lies, gossip, innuendo and irrelevancies. Take, for example, the claim that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen met with Russian Federation Council foreign affairs head Konstantin Kosachev in Prague during August 2016. That claim is verifiably false as proven by Cohen's own passport.
Likewise, the dossier 's claim that Carter Page was offered a giant bribe by the head of Rosneft, the Russian state energy company, in return for lifting the sanctions is downright laughable. That's because Carter Page never had any serious role in the Trump campaign and was one of hundreds of unpaid informal advisors who hung around the basket hoping for some role in a future Trump government.
Like the hapless George Papadopoulos, in fact, Page apparently never met Trump, had no foreign policy credentials and had been drafted onto the campaign's so-called foreign policy advisory committee out of sheer desperation.
That is, because the mainstream GOP foreign policy establishment had so completely boycotted the Trump campaign, the latter was forced to fill its advisory committee essentially from the phone book; and that desperation move in March 2016, in turn, had been undertaken in order to damp-down the media uproar over the Donald's assertion that he got his foreign policy advise from watching TV!
The truth of the matter is that Page was a former Merrill Lynch stockbrokers who had plied his trade in Russia several years earlier. He had gone to Moscow in July 2016 on his own dime and without any mandate from the Trump campaign; and his "meeting" with Rosneft actually consisted of drinks with an old buddy from his broker days who had become head of investor relations at Rosneft.
Nevertheless, it is pretty evident that the Steele dossier's tale about Page's alleged bribery scheme was the basis for the FISA warrant that resulted in wiretaps on Page and other officials in Trump Tower during September and October.
And that's your insurance policy at work: The Deep State and its allies in the Obama administration were desperately looking for dirt with which to crucify the Donald, and thereby insure that the establishment's anointed candidate would not fail at the polls.
So the question recurs as to why did the conspirators resort to the outlandish and even cartoonish disinformation contained in the Steele dossier?
The answer to that question cuts to the quick of the entire RussiaGate hoax. To wit, that's all they had!
Notwithstanding the massive machinery and communications vacuum cleaners operated by the $75 billion US intelligence communities and its vaunted 17 agencies, there are no digital intercepts proving that Russian state operatives hacked the DNC and Podesta emails. Period.
Yet when it comes to anything that even remotely smacks of "meddling" in the US election campaign, that's all she wrote.
There is nothing else of moment, and most especially not the alleged phishing expeditions directed at 20 or so state election boards. Most of these have been discredited, denied by local officials or were simply the work of everyday hackers looking for voter registration lists that could be sold.
The patently obvious point here is that in America there is no on-line network of voting machines on either an intra-state or interstate basis. And that fact renders the whole election machinery hacking meme null and void. Not even the treacherous Russians are stupid enough to waste their time trying to hack that which is unhackable.
In that vein, the Facebook ad buying scheme is even more ridiculous. In the context of an election campaign in which upwards of $7 billion of spending was reported by candidates and their committees to the FEC, and during which easily double that amount was spent by independent committees and issue campaigns, the notion that just $44,000 of Facebook ads made any difference to anything is not worthy of adult thought.
And, yes, out of the ballyhooed $100,000 of Facebook ads, the majority occurred after the election was over and none of them named candidates, anyway. The ads consisted of issue messages that reflected all points on the political spectrum from pro-choice to anti-gun control.
And even this so-called effort at "polarizing" the American electorate was "discovered" only after Facebook failed to find any "Russian-linked" ads during its first two searches. Instead, this complete drivel was detected only after the Senate's modern day Joseph McCarthy, Sen. Mark Warner, who is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a leading legislator on Internet regulation, showed up on Mark Zuckerberg's doorstep at Facebook headquarters.
In any event, we can be sure there are no NSA intercepts proving that the Russians hacked the Dem emails for one simple reason: They would have been leaked long ago by the vast network of Imperial City operatives plotting to bring the Donald down.
Moreover, the original architect and godfather of NSA's vast spying apparatus, William Binney, has essentially proved that the DNC emails were leaked by an insider who downloaded them on a memory stick. By conducting his own experiments, he showed that the known download speed of one batch of DNC emails could not have occurred over the Internet from a remote location in Russia or anywhere else on the planet, and actually matched what was possible only via a local USB-connected thumb drive.
So the real meaning of the Strzok/Gates text messages is straight foreword. There was a conspiracy to prevent Trump's election, and then after the shocking results of November 8, this campaign morphed into an intensified effort to discredit the winner.
For instance, Susan Rice got Obama to lower the classification level of the information obtained from the Trump campaign intercepts and other dirt-gathering actions by the Intelligence Community (IC)--- so that it could be disseminated more readily to all Washington intelligence agencies.
In short order, of course, the IC was leaking like a sieve, thereby paving the way for the post-election hysteria and the implication that any contact with a Russian--even one living in Brooklyn-- must be collusion. And that included calls to the Russian ambassador by the president-elect's own national security advisor designate.
Should there by any surprise, therefore, that it turns out the Andrew McCabe bushwhacked General Flynn on January 24 when he called to say that FBI agents were on the way to the White House for what Flynn presumed to be more security clearance work with his incipient staff.
No at all. The FBI team was there to interrogate Flynn about the transcripts of his perfectly appropriate and legal conversations with Ambassador Kislyak about two matters of state----the UN resolution on Israel and the spiteful new sanctions on certain Russian citizens that Obama announced on December 28 in a fit of pique over the Dems election loss.
And that insidious team of FBI gotcha cops was led by none other than......Peter Strzok!
But after all the recent leaks---and these text messages are just the tip of the iceberg-----the die is now cast. Either the Deep State and its minions and collaborators in the media and the Republican party, too, will soon succeed in putting Mike Pence into the Oval Office, or the Imperial City is about ready to break-out in vicious partisan warfare like never before.
Either way, economic and fiscal governance is about ready to collapse entirely, making the tax bill a kind of last hurrah before they mayhem really begins.
In that context, selling the rip may become one of the most profitable speculations ever imagined.
CuttingEdge -> The_Juggernaut , Dec 19, 2017 2:05 AM
A Sentinel -> BennyBoy , Dec 19, 2017 2:23 AMNot sure why Stockman went off on a tangent about Trump's innumerate economic strategy - kinda dilutes from an otherwise informative piece for anyone who hasn't a handle on the underhand shit that's been hitting the fan in recent months. Its like he has to have a go about it no matter what the main theme. Like PCR and "insouciance". And then there's the texting...
Clue yourself in, David.
A very small percentage of the public are actually informed about what is really going down. Those that visit ZH or your website. Fox is the only pro-Trump mainstream TV news outlet, and as to the NYT, WP et al? The media disinformation complex keep the rest in the matrix, and it has been very easy to see in action over the last year or so because it has been so well co-ordinated (and totally fabricated).
Given the blatant and contemptous avoidance of the truth by the MSM (the current litany of seditious/treasonous actions being a case in point), it is fair to say that Trump's tweets provide a very real public service - focussing the (otherwise ignorant) public's attention on many things the aforementioned cunts (I'll include Google and FaecesBook) divert from like the plague (and making them look utter slime in the process).
Don't knock it
redmudhooch -> BennyBoy , Dec 19, 2017 1:14 PMI do respect stockman but here's bullshit-call #1: he says that the deep state doesn't like the divisiveness he causes: bush certainly did that and Obama' did so at an order of magnitude higher. I don't believe that the left is more upset by trump than we were by Barry- we're just not a bunch of sniveling, narcissistic babies like they are.
Wage Slave 927 -> shitshitshit , Dec 19, 2017 1:45 AMHondurans accuse US of election meddling
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/hondurans-accuse-election-meddling...
The US embassy in Honduras has been surrounded by protesters infuriated by the three-week-wait for the definitive result of the presidential election.
Demonstrators accuse the US of meddling in last month's vote which both candidates say they won.
enough of this , Dec 18, 2017 11:19 PMWhen the details of the FISA warrant application are revealed, it will be like a megaton-class munition detonating, and the Deep State will bear the brunt of destruction.
SheHunter , Dec 18, 2017 11:25 PMThe Comey - Strzok Duet satire:
http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-comey-strzok-duet-on-the-eve-of-the-c...
zagzigga -> Mini-Me , Dec 18, 2017 11:48 PMFor those of you who have not yet discovered it Mr. Stockman's Contra Corner is a hands-down great blog well worth a nightly read.
Anunnaki , Dec 18, 2017 11:31 PMSimilar mass deception was in play to start the Iraq war as well. Constant bombardment led to public consensus and even the liberal New York Times endorsed the war. Whenever we see mass hysteria about something new, we should just go with the flow and not ask any questions at all. It is best for retaining sanity in this dumbed down and getting more dumber world.
Tapeworm -> Anunnaki , Dec 19, 2017 8:25 AMSusan Rice and Obama should be indicted for illegally wiretapping Trump Towers for the express purpose of finding oppo research to help Hellary's late term abortiion of a campaign
Cardinal Fang , Dec 18, 2017 11:40 PMThis one is deeper but well laid out. Comey & Mueller Ignored McCabe's Ties to Russian Crime Figures & His Reported Tampering in Russian FBI Cases, Files
https://truepundit.com/comey-mueller-ignored-mccabes-ties-to-russian-cri...
I damned near insist that y'all read this one. Please???
GoldHermit , Dec 18, 2017 11:58 PMGreat read, loved the 'Imperial City's immune system' analogy...
I disagree about the economy though.
It feels strange to me that the architect of the Reagan Revolution is unable to see the makings of another revolution, the Trump Revolution.
We have had 10-20 years of pent up demand in the economy and instead of electing another neo-Marxist Alynski acolyte, the American people elected a hard charging anti-establishment bull in a China shop.
Surely Dave can see the potential.
It kills me when people are surprised by a 12 month, 5000 point run up on Wall Street.
For God's sake the United States was run by a fucking commie for 8 years, what the fuck did you think was gonna happen?
Jeez
Not My Real Name -> GoldHermit , Dec 19, 2017 1:21 AMAmerica is divided and will remain divided. I think it will last at least for the next 50 years, maybe longer. The best way out is to limit the federal government and give each state more responsibility. States can succeed or fail on their own. People will be free to move where they want.
bh2 , Dec 19, 2017 12:01 AM"The best way out is to limit the federal government and give each state more responsibility."
Oh, you mean follow the Constitution as it was written. Good one, Hermit!
MrSteve -> bh2 , Dec 19, 2017 12:29 AMSomewhere there is a FISA judge who should be defrocked and exposed as a fraud. No sober judge would accept such evidence for any purpose, much less authorizing government snooping on a major party candidate for president.
RonBananas , Dec 19, 2017 4:51 AMThis makes FISA a totalitarian joke and that should be investigated.
Pol Pot -> RonBananas , Dec 19, 2017 4:57 AMThe CIA holds all the videos from Jeff Epstein's Island (20 documented trips by Bill, 6 documented trips by Hillary), I'm sure Bill doing a 12 year old, Hillary and Huma doing an 8 year old girl together, etc. So what are they willing to do for the CIA? Anything at any cost, getting caught red handed with a dossier is chump change when you look at the big picture..they don't care and will do anything...ANYTHING to get rid of Trump.
This is the only reason they are so frantic. There is absolutely no other reason they would play at this level.
shutterbug , Dec 19, 2017 5:47 AMCorrect on all except it's the Mossad and not the CIA who ran flight Epstein.
Stud Duck , Dec 19, 2017 6:42 AMTrump is gone in a few months or the DoJ, FBI and all others connected to FBI-gate are prosecuted...
Session's (in-)action will be crucial to one of these paths...
Occams_Razor_Trader , Dec 19, 2017 7:25 AMAs always, Dave puts it all into prospective for even the brain dead. Ya think Joe and his gang will be talking about this article on their morning talk show today?? I wonder how Brezenski's daughter is going to tell daddy that the gig is up and they may want to look into packing a boogie bag just to play it safe?
David Stockman is a flame of hope in a world of dark machievellian thought!
MATA HAIRY , Dec 19, 2017 7:34 AMWhy did the alt media and the msm all stop reportinmg that McCabe's wife recieved 700 thousand dollars from Terry McAulife (former Clinton campaign manager times 2!) for a Virginia State Senate run? Quid pro quo? Oh no, never the up and up DemonRats.
So when I hear that the conversation was held in McCabe's office- I want to puke first then start building the gallows.
insanelysane , Dec 19, 2017 8:14 AMfucken brilliant article!! There is a lot I don't like about trump (some of which stockman discusses above), but as a retired govt worker, I can tell you that he right about what he is saying here.
unklemunky , Dec 19, 2017 8:20 AMOne little tidbit that has been lost in all of this:
If the FBI was willing to use their power to back Hillary and defeat Trump at the national level, what did they try to do in McCabe's wife's state senate campaign? She is a pediatrician and she ran for state senate. ??? WTF is that about? She's not only a doctor but a doctor for children. Those people are usually wired to help people. Yet she was going to for-go being a doctor for a state senate position. ??? And the DNC forked over $700,000 to put her on the map.
I'm sure the people meeting daily in Andy's office were not pleased with the voter resistance to his wife and to Hillary. The FBI needs to be shut down. They have become an opposition research firm for the DNC. Even if they can't find dirt on candidates using the NSA database, they are able to tap that database to find out political strategies in real time on opposition The fish is rotten from the head down to the tail.
insanelysane , Dec 19, 2017 8:24 AMNo matter what article you read here, and don't get me wrong, I love the insight, but every fucking article is "it's all over. America is doomed, the petro dollar days are over, China China China. It's getting a bit old. The charts and graphs about stock market collapse......it becoming an old record that needs changed. If I say it's going to rain every fucking day, at some point I will be right. That doesn't make me a genius....it makes me persistent.
MrBoompi , Dec 19, 2017 4:25 PMIt's a Deep State mess and Sessions is trying his best as he cowers in a corner sucking his thumb.
If they continue to go after Trump, the FBI is going to be found guilty of violating the Hatch Act by exonerating Hillary. See burner phones. See writing the conclusion in May when the investigation supposedly ended with Hillary's interview on July 3rd. The FBI will also be exposed for sedition as they then carried out the phony Russiagate investigation as their "insurance policy."
However, they have created an expectation with the left that Trump and his minions will be brought to "justice." If we thought the Left didn't handle losing the election well, they will not be pleased at losing Russiagate.
How dare anyone contradict or go against the wishes of ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, or MSNBC? Don't you know they understand what's best for us?
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Dec 13, 2017 | www.unz.com
Introduction
The American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973. Since then, over a prolonged period, the capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state.
Between the mid 1970's to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and benefits and the construction of and subsidies for affordable housing have been gutted. ' Workfare' (under President 'Bill' Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced workers. Meanwhile the shift to regressive taxation and the steadily declining real wages have increased corporate profits to an astronomical degree.
What started as incremental reversals during the 1990's under Clinton has snowballed over the last two decades decimating welfare legislation and institutions.
The earlier welfare 'reforms' and the current anti-welfare legislation and austerity practices have been accompanied by a series of endless imperial wars, especially in the Middle East.
In the 1940's through the 1960's, world and regional wars (Korea and Indo-China) were combined with significant welfare program – a form of ' social imperialism' , which 'buy off' the working class while expanding the empire. However, recent decades are characterized by multiple regional wars and the reduction or elimination of welfare programs – and a massive growth in poverty, domestic insecurity and poor health.
New Deals and Big Wars
The 1930's witnessed the advent of social legislation and action, which laid the foundations of what is called the ' modern welfare state' .
Labor unions were organized as working class strikes and progressive legislation facilitated trade union organization, elections, collective bargaining rights and a steady increase in union membership. Improved work conditions, rising wages, pension plans and benefits, employer or union-provided health care and protective legislation improved the standard of living for the working class and provided for 2 generations of upward mobility.
Social Security legislation was approved along with workers' compensation and the forty-hour workweek. Jobs were created through federal programs (WPA, CCC, etc.). Protectionist legislation facilitated the growth of domestic markets for US manufacturers. Workplace shop steward councils organized 'on the spot' job action to protect safe working conditions.
World War II led to full employment and increases in union membership, as well as legislation restricting workers' collective bargaining rights and enforcing wage freezes. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found jobs in the war economy but a huge number were also killed or wounded in the war.
The post-war period witnessed a contradictory process: wages and salaries increased while legislation curtailed union rights via the Taft Hartley Act and the McCarthyist purge of leftwing trade union activists. So-called ' right to work' laws effectively outlawed unionization mostly in southern states, which drove industries to relocate to the anti-union states.
Welfare reforms, in the form of the GI bill, provided educational opportunities for working class and rural veterans, while federal-subsidized low interest mortgages encourage home-ownership, especially for veterans.
The New Deal created concrete improvements but did not consolidate labor influence at any level. Capitalists and management still retained control over capital, the workplace and plant location of production.
Trade union officials signed pacts with capital: higher pay for the workers and greater control of the workplace for the bosses. Trade union officials joined management in repressing rank and file movements seeking to control technological changes by reducing hours (" thirty hours work for forty hours pay "). Dissident local unions were seized and gutted by the trade union bosses – sometimes through violence.
Trade union activists, community organizers for rent control and other grassroots movements lost both the capacity and the will to advance toward large-scale structural changes of US capitalism. Living standards improved for a few decades but the capitalist class consolidated strategic control over labor relations. While unionized workers' incomes, increased, inequalities, especially in the non-union sectors began to grow. With the end of the GI bill, veterans' access to high-quality subsidized education declined.
While a new wave of social welfare legislation and programs began in the 1960's and early 1970's it was no longer a result of a mass trade union or workers' "class struggle". Moreover, trade union collaboration with the capitalist regional war policies led to the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of workers in two wars – the Korean and Vietnamese wars.
Much of social legislation resulted from the civil and welfare rights movements. While specific programs were helpful, none of them addressed structural racism and poverty.
The Last Wave of Social Welfarism
The 1960'a witnessed the greatest racial war in modern US history: Mass movements in the South and North rocked state and federal governments, while advancing the cause of civil, social and political rights. Millions of black citizens, joined by white activists and, in many cases, led by African American Viet Nam War veterans, confronted the state. At the same time, millions of students and young workers, threatened by military conscription, challenged the military and social order.
Energized by mass movements, a new wave of social welfare legislation was launched by the federal government to pacify mass opposition among blacks, students, community organizers and middle class Americans. Despite this mass popular movement, the union bosses at the AFL-CIO openly supported the war, police repression and the military, or at best, were passive impotent spectators of the drama unfolding in the nation's streets. Dissident union members and activists were the exception, as many had multiple identities to represent: African American, Hispanic, draft resisters, etc.
Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Medicare, Medicaid, OSHA, the EPA and multiple poverty programs were implemented. A national health program, expanding Medicare for all Americans, was introduced by President Nixon and sabotaged by the Kennedy Democrats and the AFL-CIO. Overall, social and economic inequalities diminished during this period.
The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the American militarist empire. This coincided with the beginning of the end of social welfare as we knew it – as the bill for militarism placed even greater demands on the public treasury.
With the election of President Carter, social welfare in the US began its long decline. The next series of regional wars were accompanied by even greater attacks on welfare via the " Volker Plan " – freezing workers' wages as a means to combat inflation.
Guns without butter' became the legislative policy of the Carter and Reagan Administrations. The welfare programs were based on politically fragile foundations.
The Debacle of Welfarism
Private sector trade union membership declined from a post-world war peak of 30% falling to 12% in the 1990's. Today it has sunk to 7%. Capitalists embarked on a massive program of closing thousands of factories in the unionized North which were then relocated to the non-unionized low wage southern states and then overseas to Mexico and Asia. Millions of stable jobs disappeared.
Following the election of 'Jimmy Carter', neither Democratic nor Republican Presidents felt any need to support labor organizations. On the contrary, they facilitated contracts dictated by management, which reduced wages, job security, benefits and social welfare.
The anti-labor offensive from the ' Oval Office' intensified under President Reagan with his direct intervention firing tens of thousands of striking air controllers and arresting union leaders. Under Presidents Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and William Clinton cost of living adjustments failed to keep up with prices of vital goods and services. Health care inflation was astronomical. Financial deregulation led to the subordination of American industry to finance and the Wall Street banks. De-industrialization, capital flight and massive tax evasion reduced labor's share of national income.
The capitalist class followed a trajectory of decline, recovery and ascendance. Moreover, during the earlier world depression, at the height of labor mobilization and organization, the capitalist class never faced any significant political threat over its control of the commanding heights of the economy.
The ' New Deal' was, at best, a de facto ' historical compromise' between the capitalist class and the labor unions, mediated by the Democratic Party elite. It was a temporary pact in which the unions secured legal recognition while the capitalists retained their executive prerogatives.
The Second World War secured the economic recovery for capital and subordinated labor through a federally mandated no strike production agreement. There were a few notable exceptions: The coal miners' union organized strikes in strategic sectors and some leftist leaders and organizers encouraged slow-downs, work to rule and other in-plant actions when employers ran roughshod with special brutality over the workers. The recovery of capital was the prelude to a post-war offensive against independent labor-based political organizations. The quality of labor organization declined even as the quantity of trade union membership increased.
Labor union officials consolidated internal control in collaboration with the capitalist elite. Capitalist class-labor official collaboration was extended overseas with strategic consequences.
The post-war corporate alliance between the state and capital led to a global offensive – the replacement of European-Japanese colonial control and exploitation by US business and bankers. Imperialism was later 're-branded' as ' globalization' . It pried open markets, secured cheap docile labor and pillaged resources for US manufacturers and importers.
US labor unions played a major role by sabotaging militant unions abroad in cooperation with the US security apparatus: They worked to coopt and bribe nationalist and leftist labor leaders and supported police-state regime repression and assassination of recalcitrant militants.
' Hand in bloody glove' with the US Empire, the American trade unions planted the seeds of their own destruction at home. The local capitalists in newly emerging independent nations established industries and supply chains in cooperation with US manufacturers. Attracted to these sources of low-wage, violently repressed workers, US capitalists subsequently relocated their factories overseas and turned their backs on labor at home.
Labor union officials had laid the groundwork for the demise of stable jobs and social benefits for American workers. Their collaboration increased the rate of capitalist profit and overall power in the political system. Their complicity in the brutal purges of militants, activists and leftist union members and leaders at home and abroad put an end to labor's capacity to sustain and expand the welfare state.
Trade unions in the US did not use their collaboration with empire in its bloody regional wars to win social benefits for the rank and file workers. The time of social-imperialism, where workers within the empire benefited from imperialism's pillage, was over. Gains in social welfare henceforth could result only from mass struggles led by the urban poor, especially Afro-Americans, community-based working poor and militant youth organizers.
The last significant social welfare reforms were implemented in the early 1970's – coinciding with the end of the Vietnam War (and victory for the Vietnamese people) and ended with the absorption of the urban and anti-war movements into the Democratic Party.
Henceforward the US corporate state advanced through the overseas expansion of the multi-national corporations and via large-scale, non-unionized production at home.
The technological changes of this period did not benefit labor. The belief, common in the 1950's, that science and technology would increase leisure, decrease work and improve living standards for the working class, was shattered. Instead technological changes displaced well-paid industrial labor while increasing the number of mind-numbing, poorly paid, and politically impotent jobs in the so-called 'service sector' – a rapidly growing section of unorganized and vulnerable workers – especially including women and minorities.
Labor union membership declined precipitously. The demise of the USSR and China's turn to capitalism had a dual effect: It eliminated collectivist (socialist) pressure for social welfare and opened their labor markets with cheap, disciplined workers for foreign manufacturers. Labor as a political force disappeared on every count. The US Federal Reserve and President 'Bill' Clinton deregulated financial capital leading to a frenzy of speculation. Congress wrote laws, which permitted overseas tax evasion – especially in Caribbean tax havens. Regional free-trade agreements, like NAFTA, spurred the relocation of jobs abroad. De-industrialization accompanied the decline of wages, living standards and social benefits for millions of American workers.
The New Abolitionists: Trillionaires
The New Deal, the Great Society, trade unions, and the anti-war and urban movements were in retreat and primed for abolition.
Wars without welfare (or guns without butter) replaced earlier 'social imperialism' with a huge growth of poverty and homelessness. Domestic labor was now exploited to finance overseas wars not vice versa. The fruits of imperial plunder were not shared.
As the working and middle classes drifted downward, they were used up, abandoned and deceived on all sides – especially by the Democratic Party. They elected militarists and demagogues as their new presidents.
President 'Bill' Clinton ravaged Russia, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Somalia and liberated Wall Street. His regime gave birth to the prototype billionaire swindlers: Michael Milken and Bernard 'Bernie' Madoff.
Clinton converted welfare into cheap labor 'workfare', exploiting the poorest and most vulnerable and condemning the next generations to grinding poverty. Under Clinton the prison population of mostly African Americans expanded and the breakup of families ravaged the urban communities.
Provoked by an act of terrorism (9/11) President G.W. Bush Jr. launched the 'endless' wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and deepened the police state (Patriot Act). Wages for American workers and profits for American capitalist moved in opposite directions.
The Great Financial Crash of 2008-2011 shook the paper economy to its roots and led to the greatest shakedown of any national treasury in history directed by the First Black American President. Trillions of public wealth were funneled into the criminal banks on Wall Street – which were ' just too big to fail .' Millions of American workers and homeowners, however, were ' just too small to matter' .
The Age of Demagogues
President Obama transferred 2 trillion dollars to the ten biggest bankers and swindlers on Wall Street, and another trillion to the Pentagon to pursue the Democrats version of foreign policy: from Bush's two overseas wars to Obama's seven.
Obama's electoral 'donor-owners' stashed away two trillion dollars in overseas tax havens and looked forward to global free trade pacts – pushed by the eloquent African American President.
Obama was elected to two terms. His liberal Democratic Party supporters swooned over his peace and justice rhetoric while swallowing his militarist escalation into seven overseas wars as well as the foreclosure of two million American householders. Obama completely failed to honor his campaign promise to reduce wage inequality between black and white wage earners while he continued to moralize to black families about ' values' .
Obama's war against Libya led to the killing and displacement of millions of black Libyans and workers from Sub-Saharan Africa. The smiling Nobel Peace Prize President created more desperate refugees than any previous US head of state – including millions of Africans flooding Europe.
'Obamacare' , his imitation of an earlier Republican governor's health plan, was formulated by the private corporate health industry (private insurance, Big Pharma and the for-profit hospitals), to mandate enrollment and ensure triple digit profits with double digit increases in premiums. By the 2016 Presidential elections, ' Obama-care' was opposed by a 45%-43% margin of the American people. Obama's propagandists could not show any improvement of life expectancy or decrease in infant and maternal mortality as a result of his 'health care reform'. Indeed the opposite occurred among the marginalized working class in the old 'rust belt' and in the rural areas. This failure to show any significant health improvement for the masses of Americans is in stark contrast to LBJ's Medicare program of the 1960's, which continues to receive massive popular support.
Forty-years of anti welfare legislation and pro-business regimes paved the golden road for the election of Donald Trump
Trump and the Republicans are focusing on the tattered remnants of the social welfare system: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. The remains of FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society -- are on the chopping block.
The moribund (but well-paid) labor leadership has been notable by its absence in the ensuing collapse of the social welfare state. The liberal left Democrats embraced the platitudinous Obama/Clinton team as the 'Great Society's' gravediggers, while wailing at Trump's allies for shoving the corpse of welfare state into its grave.
Conclusion
Over the past forty years the working class and the rump of what was once referred to as the ' labor movement' has contributed to the dismantling of the social welfare state, voting for ' strike-breaker' Reagan, ' workfare' Clinton, ' Wall Street crash' Bush, ' Wall Street savior' Obama and ' Trickle-down' Trump.
Gone are the days when social welfare and profitable wars raised US living standards and transformed American trade unions into an appendage of the Democratic Party and a handmaiden of Empire. The Democratic Party rescued capitalism from its collapse in the Great Depression, incorporated labor into the war economy and the post- colonial global empire, and resurrected Wall Street from the 'Great Financial Meltdown' of the 21 st century.
The war economy no longer fuels social welfare. The military-industrial complex has found new partners on Wall Street and among the globalized multi-national corporations. Profits rise while wages fall. Low paying compulsive labor (workfare) lopped off state transfers to the poor. Technology – IT, robotics, artificial intelligence and electronic gadgets – has created the most class polarized social system in history. The first trillionaire and multi-billionaire tax evaders rose on the backs of a miserable standing army of tens of millions of low-wage workers, stripped of rights and representation. State subsidies eliminate virtually all risk to capital. The end of social welfare coerced labor (including young mother with children) to seek insecure low-income employment while slashing education and health – cementing the feet of generations into poverty. Regional wars abroad have depleted the Treasury and robbed the country of productive investment. Economic imperialism exports profits, reversing the historic relation of the past.
Labor is left without compass or direction; it flails in all directions and falls deeper in the web of deception and demagogy. To escape from Reagan and the strike breakers, labor embraced the cheap-labor predator Clinton; black and white workers united to elect Obama who expelled millions of immigrant workers, pursued 7 wars, abandoned black workers and enriched the already filthy rich. Deception and demagogy of the labor-
Issac , December 11, 2017 at 11:01 pm GMT
"The military-industrial complex has found new partners on Wall Street and among the globalized multi-national corporations."whyamihere , December 12, 2017 at 4:24 am GMT"The collaboration of liberals and unions in promoting endless wars opened the door to Trump's mirage of a stateless, tax-less, ruling class."
A mirage so real, it even has you convinced.
If the welfare state in America was abolished, major American cities would burn to the ground. Anarchy would ensue, it would be magnitudes bigger than anything that happened in Ferguson or Baltimore. It would likely be simultaneous.Disordered , December 13, 2017 at 8:41 am GMTI think that's one of the only situations where preppers would actually live out what they've been prepping for (except for a natural disaster).
I've been thinking about this a little over the past few years after seeing the race riots. What exactly is the line between our society being civilized and breaking out into chaos. It's probably a lot thinner than most people think.
I don't know who said it but someone long ago said something along the lines of, "Democracy can only work until the people figure out they can vote for themselves generous benefits from the public treasury." We are definitely in this situation today. I wonder how long it can last.
While I agree with Petras's intent (notwithstanding several exaggerations and unnecessary conflations with, for example, racism), I don't agree so much with the method he proposes. I don't mind welfare and unions to a certain extent, but they are not going to save us unless there is full employment and large corporations that can afford to pay an all-union workforce. That happened during WW2, as only wartime demand and those pesky wage freezes solved the Depression, regardless of all the public works programs; while the postwar era benefited from the US becoming the world's creditor, meaning that capital could expand while labor participation did as well.Wally , Website December 13, 2017 at 8:57 am GMTFrom then on, it is quite hard to achieve the same success after outsourcing and mechanization have happened all over the world. Both of these phenomena not only create displaced workers, but also displaced industries, meaning that it makes more sense to develop individual workfare (and even then, do it well, not the shoddy way it is done now) rather than giving away checks that probably will not be cashed for entrepreneurial purposes, and rather than giving away money to corrupt unions who depend on trusts to be able to pay for their benefits, while raising the cost of hiring that only encourages more outsourcing.
The amount of welfare given is not necessarily the main problem, the problem is doing it right for the people who truly need it, and efficiently – that is, with the least amount of waste lost between the chain of distribution, which should reach intended targets and not moochers.
Which inevitably means a sound tax system that targets unearned wealth and (to a lesser degree) foreign competition instead of national production, coupled with strict, yet devolved and simple government processes that benefit both business and individuals tired of bureaucracy, while keeping budgets balanced. Best of both worlds, and no military-industrial complex needed to drive up demand.
"President Obama transferred 2 trillion dollars to the ten biggest bankers and swindlers on Wall Street " That's twice the amount that Bush gave them.jacques sheete , December 13, 2017 at 10:52 am GMTDen Lille Abe , December 13, 2017 at 11:09 am GMTThe American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973. Since then, over a prolonged period, the capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Corporations [now] are welfare recipients and the bigger they are, the more handouts they suck up, and welfare for them started before 1935. In fact, it started in America before there was a USA. I do not have time to elaborate, but what were the various companies such as the British East India Company and the Dutch West India Companies but state pampered, welfare based entities? ~200 years ago, Herbert Spencer, if memory serves, pointed out that the British East India Company couldn't make a profit even with all the special, government granted favors showered upon it.
Corporations not only continuously seek monopolies (with the aid and sanction of the state) but they steadily fine tune the welfare state for their benefit. In fact, in reality, welfare for prols and peasants wouldn't exist if it didn't act as a money conduit and ultimate profit center for the big money grubbers.
Well, the author kind of nails it. I remember from my childhood in the 50-60 ties in Scandinavia that the US was the ultimate goal in welfare. The country where you could make a good living with your two hands, get you kids to UNI, have a house, a telly ECT. It was not consumerism, it was the American dream, a chicken in every pot; we chewed imported American gum and dreamed.wayfarer , December 13, 2017 at 1:01 pm GMTIn the 70-80 ties Scandinavia had a tremendous social and economic growth, EQUALLY distributed, an immense leap forward. In the middle of the 80 ties we were equal to the US in standards of living.
Since we have not looked at the US, unless in pity, as we have seen the decline of the general income, social wealth fall way behind our own.
The average US workers income has not increased since 90 figures adjusted for inflation. The Scandinavian workers income in the same period has almost quadrupled. And so has our societies.The article is dismal reading, and evidence of the failings of the "unregulated" society, where the anything goes as long as you are wealthy.
Anonymous , Disclaimer December 13, 2017 at 1:40 pm GMTBetween the mid 1970's to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and benefits and the construction of and subsidies for affordable housing have been gutted. 'Workfare' (under President 'Bill' Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced workers. Meanwhile the shift to regressive taxation and the steadily declining real wages have increased corporate profits to an astronomical degree.
source: http://www.unz.com/jpetras/rise-and-decline-of-the-welfare-state/
What does Hollywood "elite" JAP and wannabe hack-stand-up-comic Sarah Silverman think about the class struggle and problems facing destitute Americans? "Qu'ils mangent de la bagels!", source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
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@Greg FraserAnonymous , Disclaimer December 13, 2017 at 2:43 pm GMTLike the Pentagon. Americans still don't readily call this welfare, but they will eventually. Defense profiteers are unions in a sense, you're either in their club Or you're in the service industry that surrounds it.
As other commenters have pointed out, it's Petras curious choice of words that sometimes don't make too much sense. We can probably blame the maleable English language for that, but here it's too obvious. If you don't define a union, people might assume you're only talking about a bunch of meat cutters at Safeway.animalogic , December 13, 2017 at 2:57 pm GMTThe welfare state is alive and well for corporate America. Unions are still here – but they are defined by access and secrecy, you're either in the club or not.
The war on unions was successful first by co-option but mostly by the media. But what kind of analysis leaves out the role of the media in the American transformation? The success is mind blowing.
America has barely literate (white) middle aged males trained to spout incoherent Calvinistic weirdness: unabased hatred for the poor (or whoever they're told to hate) and a glorification of hedge fund managers as they get laid off, fired and foreclosed on, with a side of opiates.
There is hardly anything more tragic then seeing a web filled with progressives (management consultants) dedicated to disempowering, disabling and deligitimizing victims by claiming they are victims of biology, disease or a lack of an education rather than a system that issues violence while portending (with the best media money can buy) that they claim the higher ground.
@WallyReg Cæsar , December 13, 2017 at 3:08 pm GMT""Democracy can only work until the people figure out they can vote for themselves generous benefits from the public treasury." We are definitely in this situation today."
Quite right: the 0.01% have worked it out & US democracy is a Theatre for the masses.
Reg Cæsar , December 13, 2017 at 3:20 pm GMTThey elected militarists and demagogues as their new presidents.
Wilson and FDR were much more militarist and demagogic than those that followed.
@whyamiherephil , December 13, 2017 at 4:48 pm GMTI don't know who said it but someone long ago said something along the lines of, "Democracy can only work until the people figure out they can vote for themselves generous benefits from the public treasury."
Some French aristocrat put it as, once the gates to the treasury have been breached, they can only be closed again with gunpowder. Anyone recognize the author?
The author doesn't get it. What we have now IS the welfare state in an intensely diverse society. We have more transfer spending than ever before and Obamacare represents another huge entitlement.HallParvey , December 13, 2017 at 4:57 pm GMTIntellectuals continue to fantasize about the US becoming a Big Sweden, but Sweden has only been successful insofar as it has been a modest nation-state populated by ethnic Swedes. Intense diversity in a huge country with only the remnants of federalism results in massive non-consensual decision-making, fragmentation, increased inequality, and corruption.
@AnonymousAnonymous , Disclaimer December 13, 2017 at 4:57 pm GMTThe welfare state is alive and well for corporate America. Unions are still here – but they are defined by access and secrecy, you're either in the club or not.
They are largely defined as Doctors, Lawyers, and University Professors who teach the first two. Of course they are not called unions. Access is via credentialing and licensing. Good Day
@Linda GreenAnonymous , Disclaimer December 13, 2017 at 5:54 pm GMTBernie Sanders, speaking on behalf of the MIC's welfare bird: "It is the airplane of the United States Air Force, Navy, and of NATO."
Elizabeth Warren, referring to Mossad's Estes Rockets: "The Israeli military has the right to attack Palestinian hospitals and schools in self defense"
Barack Obama, yukking it up with pop stars: "Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming."
It's not the agitprop that confuses the sheep, it's whose blowhole it's coming out of (labled D or R for convenience) that gets them to bare their teeth and speak of poo.
@HallParveyLogan , December 13, 2017 at 9:10 pm GMTWhat came first, the credentialing or the idea that it is a necessary part of education? It certainly isn't an accurate indication of what people know or their general intelligence – although that myth has flourished. Good afternoon.
@RealistLogan , December 13, 2017 at 9:19 pm GMTFor an interesting projection of what might happen in total civilizational collapse, I recommend the Dies the Fire series of novels by SM Stirling.
It has a science-fictiony setup in that all high-energy system (gunpowder, electricity, explosives, internal combustion, even high-energy steam engines) suddenly stop working. But I think it does a good job of extrapolating what would happen if suddenly the cities did not have food, water, power, etc.
Spoiler alert: It ain't pretty. Those who dream of a world without guns have not really thought it through.
@philIt has been pointed out repeatedly that Sweden does very well relative to the USA. It has also been noted that people of Swedish ancestry in the USA do pretty well also. In fact considerably better than Swedes in Sweden
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Zachary Smith , December 13, 2017 at 11:00 pm
Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 8:36 amI've been seeing all sorts of places where this fellow Strzok's name pops up. Things like a FISA judge recusing himself. Things like him possibly arranging things so Hillary was able to continue her run for President. At a super-right-wing site I found these "questions".
- Did Peter Strzok receive the Steele Dossier from Hillary Clinton on July 4th when he interviewed her?
- If Hillary didn't give Strzok the dossier, who did?
- Did Peter Strzok put together the FISA Court material, which included the Steele Dossier?
- Did Peter Strzok go to the FISA Court and ask for the surveillance of the Trump team based on the Steele Dossier?
- Did James Comey assign Peter Strzok to the Clinton email case?
- Did James Comey assign Peter Strzok to the Trump surveillance case?
- Did James Comey know that Peter Strzok was compromised when he sent him to interview Michael Flynn (where surveillance was used to interview him based on the Steele Dossier that was presented to the FISA Court that Strzok put together?)
Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post paid any price for their promotion of the invasion and destruction of Iraq. They might not get off as easy this time. One can hope.
I can add one more. It's been suggested that Strzok's job as counterintelligence deputy would have made him the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director Brennan. At least this point was made explicitly in a recent LarouchePAC Live broadcast on Youtube (perhaps Will Wertz's presentation at last Saturday's Manhattan Project event) though I don't know what their evidence is. So we can ask: Was Peter Strzok the principal FBI liaison to CIA Director John Brennan?
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Dec 14, 2017 | consortiumnews.com
Exclusive: Taking on water from revealed FBI conflicts of interest, the foundering Russia-gate probe – and its mainstream media promoters – are resorting to insults against people who note the listing ship, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
The disclosure of fiercely anti-Trump text messages between two romantically involved senior FBI officials who played key roles in the early Russia-gate inquiry has turned the supposed Russian-election-meddling "scandal" into its own scandal, by providing evidence that some government investigators saw it as their duty to block or destroy Donald Trump's presidency.
Peter Strzok, who served as a Deputy Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, second in command of counterintelligence.
As much as the U.S. mainstream media has mocked the idea that an American "deep state" exists and that it has maneuvered to remove Trump from office, the text messages between senior FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok and senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page reveal how two high-ranking members of the government's intelligence/legal bureaucracy saw their role as protecting the United States from an election that might elevate to the presidency someone as unfit as Trump.
In one Aug. 6, 2016 text exchange, Page told Strzok: "Maybe you're meant to stay where you are because you're meant to protect the country from that menace." At the end of that text, she sent Strzok a link to a David Brooks column in The New York Times, which concludes with the clarion call: "There comes a time when neutrality and laying low become dishonorable. If you're not in revolt, you're in cahoots. When this period and your name are mentioned, decades hence, your grandkids will look away in shame."
Apparently after reading that stirring advice, Strzok replied, "And of course I'll try and approach it that way. I just know it will be tough at times. I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps."
At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, criticized Strzok's boast that "I can protect our country at many levels." Jordan said: "this guy thought he was super-agent James Bond at the FBI [deciding] there's no way we can let the American people make Donald Trump the next president."
In the text messages, Strzok also expressed visceral contempt for working-class Trump voters, for instance, writing on Aug. 26, 2016, "Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support. it's scary real down here."
Another text message suggested that other senior government officials – alarmed at the possibility of a Trump presidency – joined the discussion. In an apparent reference to an August 2016 meeting with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok wrote to Page on Aug. 15, 2016, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk."
Strzok added, "It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event that you die before you're 40."
It's unclear what strategy these FBI officials were contemplating to ensure Trump's defeat, but the comments mesh with what an intelligence source told me after the 2016 election, that there was a plan among senior Obama administration officials to use the allegations about Russian meddling to block Trump's momentum with the voters and -- if elected -- to persuade members of the Electoral College to deny Trump a majority of votes and thus throw the selection of a new president into the House of Representatives under the rules of the Twelfth Amendment .
The scheme involved having some Democratic electors vote for former Secretary of State Colin Powell (which did happen), making him the third-place vote-getter in the Electoral College and thus eligible for selection by the House. But the plan fizzled when enough of Trump's electors stayed loyal to their candidate to officially make him President.
After that, Trump's opponents turned to the Russia-gate investigation as the vehicle to create the conditions for somehow nullifying the election, impeaching Trump, or at least weakening him sufficiently so he could not take steps to improve relations with Russia.
In one of her text messages to Strzok, Page made reference to a possible Watergate-style ouster of Trump, writing: "Bought all the president's men. Figure I needed to brush up on watergate."
As a key feature in this oust-Trump effort, Democrats have continued to lie by claiming that "all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies concurred" in the assessment that Russia hacked the Democratic emails last year on orders from President Vladimir Putin and then slipped them to WikiLeaks to undermine Hillary Clinton's campaign.
That canard was used in the early months of the Russia-gate imbroglio to silence any skepticism about the "hacking" accusation, and the falsehood was repeated again by a Democratic congressman during Wednesday's hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.
But the "consensus" claim was never true. In May 2017 testimony , President Obama's Director of National Intelligence James Clapper acknowledged that the Jan. 6 "Intelligence Community Assessment" was put together by "hand-picked" analysts from only three agencies: the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency.
Biased at the Creation
And, the new revelations of high-level FBI bias puts Clapper's statement about "hand-picked" analysts in sharper perspective, since any intelligence veteran will tell you that if you hand-pick the analysts you are effectively hand-picking the analysis.
Although it has not yet been spelled out exactly what role Strzok and Page may have had in the Jan. 6 report, I was told by one source that Strzok had a direct hand in writing it. Whether that is indeed the case, Strzok, as a senior FBI counterintelligence official, would almost surely have had input into the selection of the FBI analysts and thus into the substance of the report itself. [For challenges from intelligence experts to the Jan. 6 report, see Consortiumnews.com's " More Holes in the Russia-gate Narrative. "]
If the FBI contributors to the Jan. 6 report shared Strzok's contempt for Trump, it could explain why claims from an unverified dossier of Democratic-financed "dirt" on Trump, including salacious charges that Russian intelligence operatives videotaped Trump being urinated on by prostitutes in a five-star Moscow hotel, was added as a classified appendix to the report and presented personally to President-elect Trump.
Though Democrats and the Clinton campaign long denied financing the dossier – prepared by ex-British spy Christopher Steele who claimed to rely on second- and third-hand information from anonymous Russian contacts – it was revealed in October 2017 that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign shared in the costs, with the payments going to the "oppo" research firm, Fusion GPS, through the Democrats' law firm, Perkins Coie.
That discovery helped ensnare another senior Justice Department official, Associate Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who talked with Steele during the campaign and had a post-election meeting with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Recently, Simpson has acknowledged that Ohr's wife, Nellie Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS last year to investigate Trump.
Bruce Ohr has since been demoted and Strzok was quietly removed from the Russia-gate investigation last July although the reasons for these moves were not publicly explained at the time.
Still, the drive for "another Watergate" to oust an unpopular – and to many insiders, unfit – President remains at the center of the thinking among the top mainstream news organizations as they have scrambled for Russia-gate "scoops" over the past year even at the cost of making serious reporting errors .
For instance, last Friday, CNN -- and then CBS News and MSNBC -- trumpeted an email supposedly sent from someone named Michael J. Erickson on Sept. 4, 2016, to Donald Trump Jr. that involved WikiLeaks offering the Trump campaign pre-publication access to purloined Democratic National Committee emails that WikiLeaks published on Sept. 13, nine days later.
Grasping for Confirmation
Since the Jan. 6 report alleged that WikiLeaks received the "hacked" emails from Russia -- a claim that WikiLeaks and Russia deny -- the story seemed to finally tie together the notion that the Trump campaign had at least indirectly colluded with Russia.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, Arizona. March 21, 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)
This new "evidence" spread like wildfire across social media. As The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald wrote in an article critical of the media's performance, some Russia-gate enthusiasts heralded the revelation with graphics of cannons booming and nukes exploding.
But the story soon collapsed when it turned out that the date on the email was actually Sept. 14, 2016, i.e., the day after WikiLeaks released the batch of DNC emails, not Sept. 4. It appeared that "Erickson" – whoever he was – had simply alerted the Trump campaign to the public existence of the WikiLeaks disclosure.
Greenwald noted , "So numerous are the false stories about Russia and Trump over the last year that I literally cannot list them all."
Yet, despite the cascade of errors and grudging corrections, including some belated admissions that there was no "17-intelligence-agency consensus" on Russian "hacking" – The New York Times made a preemptive strike against the new documentary evidence that the Russia-gate investigation was riddled with conflicts of interest.
The Times' lead editorial on Wednesday mocked reporters at Fox News for living in an "alternate universe" where the Russia-gate "investigation is 'illegitimate and corrupt,' or so says Gregg Jarrett, a legal analyst who appears regularly on [Sean] Hannity's nightly exercise in presidential ego-stroking."
Though briefly mentioning the situation with Strzok's text messages, the Times offered no details or context for the concerns, instead just heaping ridicule on anyone who questions the Russia-gate narrative.
"To put it mildly, this is insane," the Times declared. "The primary purpose of Mr. Mueller's investigation is not to take down Mr. Trump. It's to protect America's national security and the integrity of its elections by determining whether a presidential campaign conspired with a foreign adversary to influence the 2016 election – a proposition that grows more plausible every day."
The Times fumed that "roughly three-quarters of Republicans still refuse to accept that Russia interfered in the 2016 election – a fact that is glaringly obvious to everyone else, including the nation's intelligence community." (There we go again with the false suggestion of a consensus within the intelligence community.)
The Times also took to task Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, for seeking "a Special Counsel to investigate ALL THINGS 2016 – not just Trump and Russia." The Times insisted that "None of these attacks or insinuations are grounded in good faith."
But what are the Times editors so afraid of? As much as they try to insult and intimidate anyone who demands serious evidence about the Russia-gate allegations, why shouldn't the American people be informed about how Washington insiders manipulate elite opinion in pursuit of reversing "mistaken" judgments by the unwashed masses?
Do the Times editors really believe in democracy – a process that historically has had its share of warts and mistakes – or are they just elitists who think they know best and turn away their noses from the smell of working-class people at Walmart?
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ).
mike k , December 13, 2017 at 9:54 pm
mike k , December 13, 2017 at 10:00 pmThe NYT is just another tool of the multi-billionaire oligarchs who rule this USA from the shadows. They fear nothing more than the light. When that investigative light gets strong enough, more and more ordinary folks will begin to awake to the massive fraud that has been perpetrated at their expense. And when that happens, we will finally see the Oligarchy begin to crumble under the pressure of the 99%. The truth will out, then heads will roll ..
incontinent reader , December 14, 2017 at 12:04 amKeep up the pressure – get your friends interested, tell them about CN, Counterpunch, Strategic-Culture, Chris Hedges, etc. Pursuing the truth can be a fascinating hobby, that leads to a person awakening. Make it interesting, awaken your friend's curiosity.
T.J , December 14, 2017 at 8:45 amHow about also including RT in your list? It's a news and commentary site with strong journalistic values and credibility, notwithstanding what the Administration or the MSM may say or imply.
Adam Kraft , December 14, 2017 at 11:59 amIf RT didn't have the qualities you describe, attempts by the Administration and the MSM to discredit it would have been successful. However they will attempt to silence it by other means.
tina , December 14, 2017 at 11:06 pmVery true TJ. I found counterpunch when wapo / propornot blacklisted them. Gave 'em creds imo. I also like mint press, occupy, naked capitalism, **world socialist website**, disobedient media, truthout, some of Glenns work on the Intercept and my youtube subs include: wearechange, **anonymous Scandinavia**, **the jimmy dore show**, RT America, TeleSUR English*, Zoon Politikon, **democracy at work**, HA Goodman, theRealNews*, mintpressnews, watching the hawks, secular talk, laura kinhtlinger, judicial watch, empire files, redacted tonight, TBTV, a little from Julian Assange's twitter.
Erik G , December 14, 2017 at 8:03 amwhat about Al-Jazeera?
Amyg , December 14, 2017 at 1:40 pmGood suggestion; in such persuasion, one must respectfully suggest better sources and avoid any conflict.
Mr. Parry has well summarized for beginners these essential counterpoints to the mass media propaganda.
Those who would like to petition the NYT to make Robert Parry their senior editor may do so here:
https://www.change.org/p/new-york-times-bring-a-new-editor-to-the-new-york-times?recruiter=72650402&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
While Mr. Parry may prefer independence, and we all know the NYT ownership makes it unlikely, and the NYT may try to ignore it, it is instructive to them that intelligent readers know better journalism when they see it. A petition demonstrates the concerns of a far larger number of potential or lost subscribers.Walter Devine , December 13, 2017 at 10:15 pmI like this use of "awakened," in contrast to the establishment culture's fascination with "woke." People don't need to get woke. They need to become awakened. Thanks to Robert Parry.
Robert Gardner , December 13, 2017 at 10:45 pmI thought we were waiting to hear what the evidence is found. The lack of discussion about what they have uncovered seems to me to speak of a professional operation. Once they are done and present what they have found, then everyone can get on their soap boxes and let loose. As for Bias, that exists in everyone to some extent or another, where was the moral outrage from the Republicans charging this today when the Benghazi investigation was being conducted by folks with known axes to grind themselves? It is the Washington hypocrisy machine at its most obvious. As for the media, print or otherwise, they are just preaching to their choirs in order to sell whatever their particular consumers are buying. Frankly I have come to expect more from you than this article Mr. Parry, here's hoping
tina , December 13, 2017 at 11:42 pmI've been skeptical out the Russian conspiracy so far, but I agree with what Walter Devine wrote.
incontinent reader , December 14, 2017 at 12:08 amI am still waiting . Mr. Parry can ride on his story back in the 1980's. We are in 2017, The internet is good. What did those people in Washington do today? get rid of net neutrality? Love you all people on CN, Happy Hanukah Merry Christmas, and Kwanzaa, And the winter solstice. Peace to all. Love, tina everyone is going to believe that they want to believe.
Larco Marco , December 14, 2017 at 4:32 amAre you kidding about Benghazi? Obviously you have still not informed yourself about the egregious security breakdown of the Administration or how the Benghazi facility factored into the CIA's proxy war in Syria. (And, btw, where was Hillary "Rod up her Hiney" Clinton when that '3AM call' came in at 4pm?
Anna , December 14, 2017 at 12:56 amHillary Rodham Clinton AND William Hamrod Clinton
bobzz , December 14, 2017 at 3:06 pmThank you for bringing attention to the Benghazi scandal: "FBI Chief Instructed Agents To Lie About Benghazi To Protect Hillary" http://yournewswire.com/fbi-lie-benghazi-hillary/
"By placing the interests of the Obama administration over the public's interests, the order is yet another data point highlighting the politicization of the FBI: After the September 11, 2012 attack against U.S. government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, the Obama administration peddled a lie, telling the public that the attack was related to Muslims who had become enraged at an anti-Islam YouTube video, and not a planned act of terrorism – despite Hillary Clinton emailing Chelsea Clinton from her unsecure @clintonemail.com server the night of the attack to say exactly that."
-- On a topic of evidence: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-13/anti-trump-texts-between-fired-fbi-agents-having-extramarital-affair-leak-and-theyre "
In 2016, [the FBI] received the infamous anti-Trump "dossier" The "dossier" was a compendium of allegations about then-candidate Trump and others around him that was compiled by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. The firm's bank records, obtained by House investigators, revealed that the project was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Weeks before the 2016 election, Peter Strzok's FBI team agreed to pay former MI6 agent and Fusion GPS operative Christopher Steele $50,000 if he could verify the claims contained within the dossier – which relied on the cooperation of two senior Kremlin officials. (One more time for you, Walter Devine -- "if he [Steele] could verify the claims"). When Steele was unable to verify the claims in the dossier, the FBI wouldn't pay him according to the New York Times.
Despite the fact that Steele was not paid by the FBI for the dossier, Peter Strzok used it to launch a counterintelligence investigation into President Trump's team. Steele was ultimately paid $168,000 by Fusion GPS to assemble the dossier.
-- More evidence" "FBI Texts Reveal "Insurance Policy" To Prevent Trump Presidency" http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-13/we-cant-take-risk-fbi-texts-reveal-insurance-policy-prevent-trump-presidency
-- Have you noticed the numbers for payments? The bank records? The names? -- these are the evidence. Or you believe that there a Bias against the miserable Steele?
Skip Scott , December 14, 2017 at 4:28 pmOf interest to me is why the Republicans did not hammer Hillary for placing an ambassador in what was essentially a CIA compound in the first place. My guess and I can only guess is that they no objection to its being a ratline to ship Libya's stolen armaments to head-chopping jihadists (with USA blessing) fighting Assad. So to raise the issue of why putting an ambassador there would have opened the door to sensitive questions -- if the press would ask them, of course.
Jon Adams , December 14, 2017 at 6:17 pmThat's the real Benghazi story the MSM won't talk about. Although I suspect the armaments were given to the head choppers by the CIA, and then they rebelled at having them transferred to the head choppers in Syria after they had succeeded in killing Ghaddafi.
Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 7:16 pm"Madame Secretary, WHY was it necessary to destroy Libya?" No republican asked THAT question.
Adrian Engler , December 14, 2017 at 3:44 amHello Skip, nice to read your good comments again and to exchange info. Here is an article which talks about the weapons ratline in Syria. Within four days, the powerful anti-tank missiles that CIA bought in Bulgaria and (supposedly) delivered to "moderate" rebels, ended up in ISIS hands. The only problem with the article's narrative is that it is still drawing the official line that the lack of oversight is to blame for such, whilst it was clearly a deliberate action to supply weapons to ISIS wrapped up in plausible deniability of passing them through the hands of some poor inept souls serving as intermediaries.
Thus, the CIA kept being surprised that its powerful weapons kept ending up in ISIS hands but kept doing the same over and over: oops an oversight mistake, oops and another one, oops one more, and another one, . the two hundredth one
Antiwar7 , December 14, 2017 at 7:24 amStarting a grand-scale investigation on the basis of allegations of conspiracy with another government and treason is rather dubious when these allegations from dirty campaign tactics are not based on any tangible facts. It is true that the Muller team does not leak as much to the press as the intelligence services did previously. This investigation still plays an important role for the media propaganda that still pushes the Russiagate conspiracy theory even though there had never been any factual basis for it and no evidence has been found in over a year. Since there is still this investigation is going on, they can use it for justifying their daily minutes of hate against Russia, their calls for censorship and denounciation of any political position that diverges from the neoconservative and neoliberal ideology.
I wonder how long this can go on. So far, the indictments of the Muller team have had nothing to do with the Russiagate conspiracy theory. Paul Manafort was indicted for tax evasion related to lobbying business with Ukraine, mostly years ago. Michael Flynn was indicted because when he reported a call from his holidays to the Russian ambassador to the FBI more than three weeks later, he left out two elements (the FBI had the recordings from the NSA, anyway, so they wouldn't have had to ask him about the telephone call). There was nothing illegal about the contents of the telephone call (the most dubious thing was, of course, the lobbying related to a UN security council resolution vote, but that might at best hint at colluding with Israel, it certainly does not fit the Russiagate conspiracy theory). It seems quite plausible that Flynn just forgot these two elements of a telephone call in which quite a large number of points was raised and that he pleaded guilty because of a plea deal (otherwise he might have been indicted in connection with his lobbying work for Turkey). Superficially, the closest to the idea of Russiagate is the indictment of Papadopoulos, someone who played a minor role in the Trump campaign and was looking for contacts with Russians, but, as it seems did not get very far (for some reasons he seemed to think a Russian woman he was talking with was a relative of Putin). His actions may have been naïve or misguided, but nothing about them was illegal, like in the case of Michael Flynn, he is only accused of lying to the FBI about normal, legal actions.
So, if we judge the Muller investigation by its results, it is not going anywhere. Obviously, that is what should be expected when a commission is set up for investigating a conspiracy theory for which there had never been any evidence to begin with. I suppose the result would be similar if the Illuminati, the Elders of Zion, or reptiloids were officially investigated.
The question is how they will wind down. If they just say that apart from things like Manafort's possible tax evation and Flynn's lobbying for Israel, they have not found anything – certainly nothing that confirms the Russiagate conspiracy theory -, that will be quite difficult, people will demand that it is investigated how it came about that such a conspiracy was spread and played such an influential role in political discourse for some time. It seems that the Muller team wants to delay that moment when they have to confess that the conspiracy theory has broken down, but that won't necessarily make it easier, either.
bobzz , December 14, 2017 at 3:09 pmHow long should we wait until we hear of ONE, that's right, ONE piece of evidence backing these claims up? Please answer: 2 years? 10 years? The only evidence so far amounts to "trust us".
And that's ignoring the monumental number of pieces of false evidence that have been put forward. That in itself makes the whole "investigation" suspicious. On top of the long, documented history of the CIA planting false stories in the press.
Dunno , December 14, 2017 at 4:43 pmI don't know. How long did it take the Dutch to cook the evidence to condemn Russian partisans for the downing of the Malaysian airliner -- with Ukraine holding a gun to their heads.
Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 8:24 pmDear Mr. 7, I have come to the grudging conclusion that Russia-gate is and has always been more about Russia and Putin than about the crooked Don. If we stop to think about it, Trump has succumbed to the deep control of the Deep-State colossus. Russia evil; Israel good! Got it? When the pathetic wiener & crotch-grabber isn't bitchin' for Bibi and doing little pooch tricks for Israel, he is being programmed by the pentagon and the Deep State, and making sure that the super-rich get super richer. His own SOS Tillerson called him an effin' moron. Enough said!
Therefore, 7, Russia-gate is all about keeping the pot boiling for the presidential election in Russia next year. Demonizing Putin and Russia is the new great game of our era. The NWO Nebula lusts after Russia's geostrategic location and its abundant resources. It's 1905-1925 all over again. Read the book, "Wall Street and the Russian Revolution 1905-1925" by Richard B. Spence and also take a gander at Trine Day books' website of suppressed books. The deep-state Plutocrats and their secret societies hatch their evil little plots, while trying to keep the rest of us in the dark. Right now, Trump is a convenient platform for anti-Russian propaganda.
Sam F , December 14, 2017 at 8:10 amThink you nailed it. The bankster regime changers already tried once to structurally adjust Russia into being a US puppet state in the 90s under Clinton. Russia was robbed blind while Yeltzin drank himself into a stupor. Putin is the one who put a stop to the looting. That is his crime against the western oligarchs and why he is enemy #1.
Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 8:43 pmOnce more the standard troll line about being a prior supporter, which plainly "Devine" is not.
We are well over a year into this matter with nothing but speculation and manufactured claims.
It is clear that Russia-gate = Israel-gate, a diversion from zionist control of the DNC.
Where is the concern of "Devine" for the lack of investigation of control of elections and mass media by Israel?
Why does he seek to cover up the complete destruction of democracy by the foreign power Israel?Adam Kraft , December 14, 2017 at 12:16 pmOliver Stone had this to say on the matter on FaceBook. If you're on FB, here is the link.
Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 8:49 pmfacts don't show bias walt. yeah, media sells to the public, but they're also selling (or trading narratives for access) to the gov't. Wikileaks exposed the MSM – DNC collusion and we've witnessed the leaks and anonymous sources from the IC. Trust the CIA?
There's no 'lack of discussion about what they have uncovered' which has basically amounted to a pile of dirt. Have not read from the VIPS and William Binney? Uncovering shady business with oligarchs doesn't show collusion, but the dossier oppo does, but it's business as usual. Denying the FBI-DNC server subpoena was odd don't you think?
I personally believe that progressive hope dies at the DNC and exposing the party's lies (their private and public views) and undemocratic practices (preliminary process, fundraising) is the best thing for the country. It brings us one step closer to potentially building a third party that represents the proletariat and petty bourgeois classes.
Anna , December 14, 2017 at 1:56 pmI agree with your sentiment, but I'm finding it disturbing how many so called progressives are convinced beyond any doubt, despite the evidence I produce to instill doubt, that Russia interfered in "our democracy."
They have come unglued to the point of idiocy over Trump. They are firmly in the clutches of the CIA Deep State apparatus.
Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , December 14, 2017 at 3:06 pmHey, Walter Devine, here is more for your whining about evidence: There are plenty of evidence when the disgusting clintonistas are concerned: http://theduran.com/fusion-gps-admits-that-it-hired-wife-of-doj-official-to-investigate-then-candidate-trump/
"Fusion GPS appears to be in the center of a web of corruption. Who hired Fusion GPS to ramp up its opposition research against Trump? Hillary Clinton and the DNC. the wife of Justice Department official Bruce G. Ohr worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 presidential election. Nellie Ohr is listed as working for the CIA's Open Source Works department in a 2010 DOJ report." Look how the CIA, FBI, and DNC have found each other and made a friendship forever.
Also, do you personally have any concern about the murder of Seth Rich? -- Donna Brazil has become afraid of being Seth-Riched. How come? What kind of scum the Democratic apparatus has become? -- Guess Tony Podesta and Bill Clinton and madame "we came, we saw, he died ha, ha, ha " are the composite face of the Democratic Party today.
Gregory Herr , December 14, 2017 at 8:22 pm@ Walter Devine: "Once they are done and present what they have found, then everyone can get on their soap boxes and let loose."
But overlook that the Democrats and mainstream media are doing the opposite? It seems to me that this is precisely the point that Mr. Parry's reporting has been aimed at, that the Democrats and mainstream media are jumping enormously to RussiaGate conclusions without disclosing any evidence to back up their incredibly dangerous claims and that there *is* very strong evidence of ulterior motives.
Peter de Klerk , December 14, 2017 at 8:53 pmHave at it Walter. What exactly have they uncovered? The "process" lost credibility long ago. The "intelligence" report of January 6th was garbage and it's been all downhill since.
falcemartello , December 13, 2017 at 10:28 pmI had great respect Parry's earlier writing which had a healthy dose of MSM skepticism (albeit largely for personal reasons). This whole business of jumping to conclusions on the Russia meddling has put me off him totally. All the reporting seems to be in service of defending a forgone conclusion. I wonder if this has anything to do with fundraising.
john wilson , December 14, 2017 at 6:00 amThis whole Russia ate my lunch has entered the realm of alternate truth. The MSM are now actually stating that the Russian hacking the 2016 election as fact. Just like all the other false and fabricated statements of world events in the last 20 years . Fro Yugoslavia, Milosovic exonerated for the falsely laid charges of genocide . How convenient after his death . Qadaffi murdering and slaughtering his own people hence RPL interventionist and voila the highest standard of living in the African continent is now reduced to takfiri heaven for the NATO proxy army recruiting centre. MH17 disaster is still being paroled as Russian deliberate murder. No facts no evidence that would stand even in a Stalinist show trial. Assad gassing his own people. More than debunked by multiple sources and US academics to boot no still being paroled as fact by western MSM.
The whole charade post 9/11 has gone into this Orwellian nightmare that just keep on growing and news and information has become pure Hollwoodian fantasy that the sheeple are sleep walking into this futuristic hell hole that these vile masters of the universe will not be able to back track without losing face and without causing the populace to stand up and be counted and kick tjhese vile players out for good.
Skip Scott , December 14, 2017 at 8:15 amTake heart Falcemartello, its not all bad. Over here in the Britain RT has its own free to view TV channel which sits next to the BBC news and the parliament programme. It is now widely watched by the public and has millions of viewers with many using RT as their main news source. The fact that the American deep state criminals have made things difficult for RT America in the US, is a clear indication that the fake news masters otherwise known as the MSN, and their handlers in the deep state are rattled by the ever growing alternative voice. Its up to you, me and the rest of the posters on CN to tell our friends colleagues and others about CN, RT etc. If only one percent take a look then alternative opinion will start to filter through and more importantly, show the public what liars and criminals are in charge of their country.
BobS , December 14, 2017 at 11:36 amThanks for the info John. I am really glad that at least Britain has a reasonable degree of freedom of the press. If it spreads across Europe, the USA may eventually find itself so isolated by its own propaganda that the whole evil empire scheme will implode, and we will have to learn to wage peace in a multi-polar world. That is my Christmas wish.
rosemerry , December 14, 2017 at 4:48 pmIt's not difficult to get RT in the US- I watch it regularly on Dish Network. Youtube is another option- I'm guessing it's big and rich enough to survive any changes in net neutrality that will result from the Trump/Pai FCC (of course, Obama and Clinton were just as bad, DEEP STATE!!!!, etc.).
If you're going to tout conspiracies, get your facts straight.rosemerry , December 14, 2017 at 5:06 pmJohn Pilger has an article in counterpunch explaining the importance of documentaries (not just his!). It is notable that his first one, on Cambodia, in 1970, was shown free to air on TV in the UK and thirity other countries, with huge audience impact, but refused by PBS as too disturbing!!
The free press in the USA is in tune with the ptb.
Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 7:58 pmI see the Pilger article is here on consortiumnews. It is worth a read, like the rest here!
Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 8:00 pmWhat you wrote john wilson is simply not the complete truth, although I wish it was. It is true that RT UK has its own terrestrial digital TV channel. It appears that Margarita Simonyan bid for such channel at an auction when Britain was converting from analogue to digital TV and got it. Thus, the British TV viewers can now see RT without any subscription or special equipment, "next to BBC" as you optimistically say.
What you did not mention john wilson is that the British Government regulator Ofcom is putting severe pressure on RT because their news offered an alternative view to the British propaganda. They rinse and repeat the same biased-news allegations almost every year, keeping RT UK under constant threat of the loss of its broadcasting licence due to "breach of truth standards" = "fake news". They even banned the lightbox, radio and other media advertising campaign of RT in Britain, the so called "RT is the second opinion", only because the campaign claimed that if RT existed before UK attack on Iraq in 2003, Tony Blair may have not been successful in passing the war resolutions through the parliament.
What most people do not appreciate is that the methods of suppression are not the same in all Western countries, and why should they be? Simonyan got a terrestrial TV channel and the broadcasting licence because of the British propaganda hubris – the British still believed that their post-imperial propaganda is the best in the World, just because it was the best in the world during the empire. They simply never expected the Russians to be so successful, just the same as US.
In summary:
US => force RT to register as a foreign agent to force reporting of every little detail of its operations; refuse journalistic credentials to Congress etc to disadvantage its reporting
UK => keep constant threat of the loss of broadcasting licence to skew the reporting towards the British Government version of the newsI post the links relevant to what I wrote here separately to avoid being put on hold.
Joe Tedesky , December 13, 2017 at 10:32 pmhttps://www.rt.com/about-us/press-releases/rt-uk-second-opinion/
https://theintercept.com/2015/03/02/uk-media-regulator-threatens-rt-bias-airing-anti-western-views/
rosemerry , December 14, 2017 at 4:52 pmPhilip Giraldi writes about a shift occurring over at the CIA in Trump's favor, Politico's interview with a somewhat repentant Trump hater Mike Morell now saying 'maybe our plan wasn't that well thought out' , and now these MSM Russia Gate screwups coupled with a discovery of FBI Trump haters, is a result of Trump's recognizing Jerusalem as it being Israel's capital? Just say'n.
BobH , December 14, 2017 at 1:43 pmObama's expulsion of the Russian diplomats after Trump's election, with no reason based on fact/danger to the USA gave a good start to the Russophobia encouraged by the Clinton losers and leading on to the ludicrous extreme situation still going on.
Kiza , December 14, 2017 at 8:19 pmAmen
Lois Gagnon , December 14, 2017 at 9:04 pmSpot on Bob, the unfortunate and idealistic Mr Seth Rich became the DNC's bottom line, the shining example of its "anything goes as long as we have friends in the right places" (FBI, DOJ, CIA, etc etc).
Anon , December 14, 2017 at 8:23 amAgreed. Let's not forget Process Server for the DNC Fraud Lawsuit Shawn Lucas who died mysteriously 2 weeks after serving the DNC either.
I never would have believed the rot in the Democratic Party establishment would rival the Republicans, but here we are.
Steven A , December 13, 2017 at 11:16 pm"Tina" is a troll assigned to CN to claim extremism, and never presents evidence or argument.
incontinent reader , December 14, 2017 at 12:12 amThis is another great review by Robert Parry. However, he again uses the formulation that "WikiLeaks published" and "WikiLeaks released" purloined DNC emails on September 13, 2016. Greenwald and the Washington Post have stated, more carefully, that WikiLeaks "promoted" the data source of these emails by means of a Tweet on that date.
Adam Carter noted in a comment under Parry's previous article that the DNC emails in question are the NGP/VAN files associated with Guccifer 2.0's pre-announced "hack" on July 5, 2016 and reportedly released by him on Sept 13, 2016.
In fact, they are certainly not part of WikiLeak's official archive. One can see from their website that they published nothing between the times of the DNC emails release of July 22, 2016 and the Podesta emails release of October 7. So "published" is clearly the wrong word.
Whether or in what sense it may fairly be stated that WikiLeaks "released", "promoted" or "uploaded" (as according to the Erickson email, which probably represents nothing more than an outsider's impression) the September 13 files needs to be cautiously assessed. Their Tweet did include an access key, as did the Erickson email, and the address for the file given in the latter was a "mega.nz" address. I assume that this address is associated with Kim Dot Com, who also claims to have been involved with WikiLeaks.
Did Guccifer 2.0 himself upload the files to mega.nz? Did he play Kim Dot Com to use the latter's association with Wikileaks to get Wikileaks itself to put out the Sept 13 Tweet advertising the data release? I'm not sure how this all worked, but it seems that it is misleading to simply refer to this set of emails as having been "published" by Wikileaks.
Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 8:21 amDidn't you read the VIPS analyses of the DNC leaks?
mike k , December 14, 2017 at 11:08 amYes, I did, but not while writing my comment above. Do they say anything relevant to the question of whether it is accurate to correct the false media report that the Trump campaign was given access to the NGP/VAN DNC emails before WikiLeaks published them with a "corrected" statement that the Trump campaign was notified (but may never have noticed) of a link to those files by a random member of the public _after WikiLeaks had already published them_? As I recall, the original VIPS memo was itself somewhat confused about the distinction between the NGP/VAN material and the five DNC documents made public by "Guccifer 2.0" on June 15, 2016, so I'm not sure one will find anything relevant to my question there.
While it is true that the "correction" here is _much_ closer to the truth than the original misinformation, the underlined part at the end of my question still seems misleading in that the "publication" is attributed to WikiLeaks without qualification. And it seems Parry is not the only one to make this mistake. As Adam Carter pointed out two days ago, he was very surprised that almost no one has been noticing that the files in question came from "Guccifer 2.0" and not from WikiLeaks. While Parry's attribution misleading, I am still not clear in my own mind about precisely what did happen, i.e. how WikiLeaks came to "promote" the release of the files and whether in some loose or indirect sense WikiLeaks did "release" them.
Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 2:05 pmIs there really any other purpose in your involved questioning but seeking to cloud and confuse the obvious issues in the "Russia hacked" affair?
Paul E. Merrell, J.D. , December 14, 2017 at 2:33 pmHow is it clouding the issue to suggest, as Adam Carter did, that one element in Parry's (and others') description of the facts in an otherwise excellent article seems to be misleading?
Steven A , December 14, 2017 at 3:17 pm@ "the address for the file given in the latter was a "mega.nz" address. I assume that this address is associated with Kim Dot Com, who also claims to have been involved with WikiLeaks."
Kim Dot Com's relationship with Mega was already extremely strained by the time of the Guccifer leaks and to the extent he ever had control of the company it had apparently ended. See e.g., https://torrentfreak.com/kim-dotcom-warns-mega-users-to-backup-their-files-160421/
robjira , December 14, 2017 at 12:17 amThese are the sort of details I haven't been familiar with and about which I was hoping to learn more – so thanks! I was relying on a vague impression from memory when I made the link between the "mega.nz" address seen in the email from Erickson and Kim Dot Com.
Since the whole Guccifer 2.0 operation appears to be an attempt to falsely smear WikiLeaks as a Russian agent (by publicly claiming to be a hacker associated with WikiLeaks and then being "caught" releasing documents (the ones of June 15, 2016) with "Russian fingerprints"), perhaps his uploading files (Sept 13, 2016) to a server with (past) ties to someone associated with WikiLeaks (Kim Dot Com) would have been part of the same effort.
A contemporary article says this about the release: "'Guccifer 2.0' released over 670 megabytes of documents at a cybersecurity conference in London Tuesday . The documents were released on a file storage system and not on WikiLeaks or on Guccifer 2.0's website." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/hacker-guccifer-2-0-releases-more-dnc-docs-including-tim-n647921
Thus the statement that "WikiLeaks published" the files in question (repeated by Parry, Justin Raimondo and others) appears to be false. I share the surprise expressed by Adam Carter (under Parry's previous piece) that few appear to have noticed or bothered to correct this error – even though they were on target in exposing the main part of the latest MSM lie.
Bob Van Noy , December 14, 2017 at 4:37 pmGreat related reporting on BAR.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/entire-russian-hacking-narrative-invalidated-single-assange-tweet
https://www.blackagendareport.com/russsiagate-and-collapse-obamas-war-against-syriaKarl Sanchez , December 14, 2017 at 12:57 amExcellent links, robjira. Thanks.
Marko , December 14, 2017 at 2:22 amThose of us who live within the Outlaw US Empire have been seduced by lies Big and small since we could understand language. RussiaGate is an example of a Big Lie, just as the Outlaw US Empire being a democracy is a Big Lie–both are indoctrinational. Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Great Pumpkin, Sand Man, Cupid, et al are other excellent examples of indoctrinational Big Lies. One of the most severe is the maxim delivered from parents: You must share and play nice, when the real world acts in the exact opposite fashion. What's more, RussiaGate serves as a cover-up for several major crimes–some by Clinton, some by DNC, some by FBI, some by Justice Department, and some by CIA: None of them are being actively investigated despite there being lots of evidence existing in the public domain, which is why we know those crimes occurred.
I very highly suggest reading this article, https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/12/13/the-u-s-is-not-a-democracy-it-never-was/
irina , December 14, 2017 at 4:03 amThe last great hope for the Dems :
"A Russian hacker accused of stealing from Russian banks reportedly confessed in court that he hacked the U.S. Democratic National Committee (DNC) and stole Hillary Clinton's emails under the direction of agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB)"
PUTIN ORDERED THEFT OF CLINTON'S EMAILS FROM DNC, RUSSIAN HACKER CONFESSES
BY CRISTINA MAZA ON 12/12/17http://www.newsweek.com/russian-hacker-stealing-clintons-emailshacking-dnc-putinsfsb-745555
Bob Van Noy , December 14, 2017 at 9:57 amAnd on PBS tonite the author of this Atlantic article got to put in her two cents about Putin:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/putins-game/546548/
in which she stated that not only did Putin 'annex Crimea' but also invaded Ukraine, among other things. None of her statements were backed up by any facts, which apparently are irrelevant anymore. Wikipedia has an interesting bio on her.
Sam F , December 14, 2017 at 8:56 amThank you irina for that "catch". I'm a long time reader of "The Atlantic Magazine" well aware of its long, liberal history and was surprised to find David Frum reporting there. David was a speech writer for W. Bush and apparently came up with the infamous "Axis of Evil" tag for President Bush's State Of The Union speech. I'll link the Wikipedia page below for those interested. I'm concerned that propaganda has spread far and wide
exiled off mainstreet , December 14, 2017 at 3:13 pmDespite its extremely conclusive title and substance, the Newsweek article later admits the extremely suspect nature of the accusation, and the lack of any evidence whatsoever:
"Andrei Soldatov an expert on Russian cybersecurity, said he believes Kozlovsky invented the story about his direction from the FSB for personal gain. 'I've been communicating with [Kozlovsky] for four months, and he has failed to give me any proof or answer my questions," Soldatov told Newsweek .'He was put in jail by these guys so it could be out of revenge, or he wanted to make a deal with the FSB,'"
Such a reversal of evidence and conclusion bespeaks deliberate deception. The motive is unclear, as the failed Newsweek is said to have been revived in 2013 by a Korean-American Christian fundamentalist David Jang formerly of Moon's Unification Church, whose followers consider him the Second Coming of JC, according to the linked source. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/03/newsweek-ibt-olivet-david-jang/
Perhaps another quasi-religious CIA front like Fethullah Gulen's madrassas in Turkey and across central Asia.
Manfred Whimplebottem , December 14, 2017 at 9:20 pmThey keep publishing the same horseshit just like Pravda did in the Soviet era and just like the Voelkischer Beobachter and Stuermer did during the Nazi era. I guess the uninformed hoi polloi get so used to it in these situations that they accept the situation, like ducks and frogs accept watery ponds as their environments.
Wm. Boyce , December 14, 2017 at 2:33 amI think I heard a similar story from newsweek months ago, looks like someone took the deal(?).
FBI Probe Into Clinton Emails Prompted Offer of Cash, Citizenship for Confession, Russian Hacker Claims
"On October 5, 2016, days before U.S. intelligence publicly accused Russia of endorsing an infiltration of Democratic Party officials' emails, Nikulin was arrested in Prague at the request of the U.S. on separate hacking charges. Now, Nikulin claims U.S. authorities tried to pin the email scandal on him."
"ikulin's lawyer, Martin Sadilek, [claims] that the FBI visited him at least a couple of times, offering to drop the charges and grant him U.S. citizenship as well as cash and an apartment in the U.S. if the Russian national confessed to participating in the 2016 hacks of Clinton campaign chief John Podesta's emails in July."
"[They told me:] you will have to confess to breaking into Clinton's inbox for [U.S. President Donald Trump] on behalf of [Russian President Vladimir Putin]," Nikulin wrote"
http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-investigation-clinton-emails-russia-hack-607538
Marko , December 14, 2017 at 4:43 amI'm curious as to why this is still an issue. Here's a link to an article from last August:
http://www.businessinsider.com/top-fbi-investigator-peter-strzok-steps-away-from-russia-probe-2017-8At that time, it wasn't known why Mr. Strzok was transferred/whatever from counter-intelligence, but since then it has been revealed that Mr. Mueller did so for his ( Strzok) political opinions. That would seem a fair thing to do. What's the problem? Might be right-wing fear.
exiled off mainstreet , December 14, 2017 at 3:16 pm" What's the problem? "
C'mon , man. Given Strzok's position and his influence on Russiagate AND the earlier Hillarygate investigations , the fact that he was transferred in July is of little comfort. Any damage he could do he'd already done by then. Jim Jordan will explain it to you , in six minutes :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=69&v=cShxjlUfmhk
Realist , December 14, 2017 at 2:43 amThe problem is that when that story first appeared, nothing else was disclosed. The damning material took months to emerge, as did Strzok's links to the Clinton coverups and the links to the fake dossier and the FBI's "anti-Trump" insurance policy. Those who want to believe the regime's falsehoods can always come up with rationales such as "I guess the government people know best" which was typical of the answers to sceptics against the Viet Nam war in the mid '60s.
Homina , December 14, 2017 at 3:48 amIt's been a year and a half since Hillary Clinton first accused Donald Trump of being a Putin puppet and in collusion with the Kremlin. Any fool should be able to understand that if there existed any real evidence to support this accusation the world would have seen it under banner headlines long ago. Instead, we get nothing but one set of sensational fake headlines unsupported by any actual facts time and again, all in an attempt to fool the mentally-challenged public. Yet the NYT and the rest of the yellow press continue to insist that the evidence continues to mount against Trump. What a laugh. Moreover, these deceivers are the people that want what they define as "fake news" to be systematically rooted out and stricken from the public record so no thinking person can ever see it. And, they tell us this is a free and democratic country. Got any more jokes?
exiled off mainstreet , December 14, 2017 at 3:30 amTotally agree. And it reminds me of some reality "quest" shows about finding Bigfoot or the Oak Island treasure, etc.
If those were actually found, it would be reported a day or two later, unless every single one of the producers, actors, workers, etc. were under an NDA enough to wait until some season finale a year or two later. Ridiculous. If Bigfoot exists that will come to us on news, and big news, international. It won't come on a 4th season of some Bigfoot-finding show.
So yeah, season two of the Trump-Russia whatever.
Maddow/MSNBC and the likes have gone utterly insane. Bigfoot behind every door. Scant or zero facts, who cares. This isn't like Benghazi or White Water or Bush's air service this is 24/7 inane terrible journalism from nearly every journalist publisher in the US.
Homina , December 14, 2017 at 3:40 amI think that the new evidence discussed provides Trump the cover to pull the plug on the whole Mueller operation despite the Alabama debacle. Sure the media talkers would compare it to the Saturday Night Massacre, but the proven falsity of the whole absurd circus renders risible such comparisons. While I don't expect much out of Trump, the championing of this absurd theory by the mainstream democrats renders them an existential threat to civilization itself based on the fact that enmity with Russia seems to be their be-all and end-all. It is all not only criminal but profoundly stupid.
Sam F , December 14, 2017 at 6:27 pm"The primary purpose of Mr. Mueller's investigation is not to take down Mr. Trump. It's to protect America's national security and the integrity of its elections by determining whether a presidential campaign conspired with a foreign adversary to influence the 2016 election – a proposition that grows more plausible every day."
1. How is Russia an "adversary"? And even if Russia is, that's weasel-words and subjective. Is Turkey a foreign adversary? Is Israel? China? Mexico?
2. Why wasn't there decades ago a special Election Panel looking into foreign influence? I guess it just started to happen in this last election though .Only with Putin!
3. "more plausible" .this fucking idiot. After a year of headlines of "this is what will finally take down Trump" and such, all with zero reasons, zero facts .Is naught more plausible than naught?
4. I detest Trump. I more detest hypocrites and idiots.
But sure, "blah blah more possible take trump down" says some idiot or collective NYT idiocy. Bore me more your next op-ed, you partisan morons.
Rich Monahan , December 14, 2017 at 3:57 amYes, the NYT is mere propaganda. We already know that "a presidential campaign conspired with a foreign adversary to influence the 2016 election" because Clinton's top ten donors were all Zionists, and she supported all wars for Israel.
Skip Scott , December 14, 2017 at 8:59 amThank you for your spot-on analysis! The motives of the deep state – including FBI operatives, NY Times and WAPO – is crystal clear. They do not want Trump to be president, and are determined to either remove him or handcuff him indefinitely. But why? Why has the establishment gone crazy? Is it simply political, or something deeper and darker?
M C Martin , December 14, 2017 at 6:08 amThe real "deep" reason is the PNAC plot to make sure that the USA remains the sole super power that can impose its will anywhere in the world. Trump's campaign position of seeking detente with Russia would have led us into a multi-polar world giving Russia a sphere of influence. That is unacceptable to the empire.
RussiaGate is an attempt to remove Trump from power, or at a minimum make it impossible for him to seek detente. I am no Trump apologist, but I do think our only hope for a future in this nuclear age is to seek peace and cooperation in a multi-polar world that respects national sovereignty and the rule of law. I suspect Trump will continue to be brought to heel, with or without the success of RussiaGate. And there is always the JFK solution as a last resort.
Where is William Binney's "Thin String" signals intelligence (SIGINT) software when it's needed? Wouldn't it be lovely to focus it on the communications of our own government? Binney says applying it after 9/11 to the pre-9/11 communications streams did successfully predict the 9/11 attacks. If only we had stored all communications of government officials dating back to . hey, let's say 1774 or so, what truths might we now know, and what proofs might we now have? What would FDR's communications prior to Pearl Harbor reveal? What about the JFK, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X assassinations?
While I can't endorse our government's illegal and immoral collection and storing of virtually all communications among people, if the store is there and is used against petty criminals, why couldn't or shouldn't it be used to detect and prove the illegal acts of our government power brokers?
What's good for the goose
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Dec 14, 2017 | www.unz.com
BigAl , December 13, 2017 at 1:17 pm GMT
The 1970's was in many ways the watershed decade for the radical transformation of the American economy and society, even more than the 1960's (I lived through both as a young man). I have yet to read the definitive social-critical analysis of these years to explain the changes that, looking back, seem to have taken the country of my childhood right out from under me, gone forever, increasingly difficult to remember through the fog of nostalgia that tends to distort as much as to reveal.Some of the things I do remember about this time include the PATCO (air traffic controllers) strike, very well. What is often not mentioned is that PATCO was attempting to do something that had not been permitted under federal civil service law, that is, bargain for wages as well as working conditions. Wage bargaining, PATCO correctly assessed, was the issue that made or broke unions and had enabled state and local public employees to finally begin to earn a decent, living wage beginning in the 1960's (think the iconic Mike Quill and the NYC TWU).
Reagan correctly (from his point of view) saw that to fail to break PATCO on this issue was to open the floodgates and turn the U.S. civil services into something akin to its European counterpart, with the possibility of general strikes and the rest. And of course to encourage private sector unions in their drive to organize and to change federal and state labor laws to strengthen the right to picket strike and organize.
What I also remember well however, is how little support PATCO was able to garnish from other unionized workers (and in many cases from union leadership as well). It seemed to me at the time that some of the strongest hostility came from rank and file of trade and utilities unions. Of course Reagan, following the Nixon playbook, shrewdly played the patriot-nationalist card, painting PATCO as a threat to national security as well as composed of a bunch of ingrates who should have been happy to have jobs. But by then the segmentation of the American workforce, a tactic that played right into the hands of the corporate-capitalist class was in full swing. The American worker lucky enough to possess a decent paying skilled or semi-skilled union job was being taught to see their situation as morally "deserved" and to see newer aspirants to similar positions, whether recently arrived immigrants or members of racial-ethnic groups previously suppressed by law, custom and prejudice as threats/dangers/enemies of their own recently won status.
I recall too that it was in the 1970's that the threat of "relocation", at that time mainly from the more heavily unionized north and northeastern states to the union-hostile south began to play a major role in the destruction of the power of labor. This was the beginning of the "globalization" factor and of the off-shoring of manufacturing jobs that has been commented on extensively and that took off a decade or so later. What is often not recalled is that unions and other pro-labor groups attempted to lobby Congress to amend the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act) and to appoint labor-friendly members to the NLRB to ensure that plant relocation would be a mandatory subject of bargaining and thus prevent unilateral (by capital ownership) relocation or the threat of relocation as a means to destroy the power of labor. They were, of course, not successful, and factories and business continued to move away from traditional centers of labor power and worker-protections, first to so-called "right-to-work" states and eventually to Asia.
And I remember the beginning of the financialization of the American corporation that I experienced on a "micro" scale, a kid lucky enough to have a summer job while in university at a large resource-extraction corporation's HQ in NYC. I recall white-collar conversations about compensation and about how salaries had steadily risen over the past decade (the company was said to be doing "really well"). And I remember how towards the end of my summer stints more and more conversation was about stock prices and Wall Street favor and about the new executive managerial style brought in by "those young MBA"s", and about (for the first time) worries of a "take-over" by "outsiders" (the company, although public, had had family leadership for many years).
And most of all I remember how gradually the material-economic components to the identity of the blue-collar and middle class worker were written out of existence. The great narrative, the myth that explains to us what it means to be "an American," no longer included any hint of class solidarity, of the kind of work we did, the pay we earned, the common living conditions in the small towns and urban neighborhoods and "cookie-cutter" suburbs of America.
Formerly the struggle of economic and material improvement was seen by most ordinary Americas as a struggle for certain necessary conditions to maintain, strengthen, and perpetuate a way-of-life in which the common core assumptions about the "good life" remained basically stable and unchallenged: family, stable job, residential security, public schools, public places -- neighborhood bars, coffee shops, civic clubs, parks and playgrounds -- where people could meet and interact as social equals.
The financialization of the economy, indeed of social life itself to a great extent, meant the drive for the maximization of private profit and the pursuit of interests and 'efficiencies" conceived entirely apart from any impact of the common good of society as a whole, and should have been seen as a grave threat to the very conditions of material and economic security, only recently achieved, that were the foundation of these other civic and social institutions.
Instead, through a grand and diabolical deceit cynically promulgated by a mostly Republican capitalist class of privilege, but also aided and abetted by a "new Left" that increasingly postured itself as the enemy of this older and more traditional way of life, the enemy was reconceived as the new "elites", the young, urban, hipster "Leftist" who despised the old ways and represented a singular assault on everything good about America.
Meanwhile, steadily, relentlessly, the material conditions and hard-won economic improvements that had gradually made small town, urban-neighborhood, and inner-suburban life decent and livable were being destroyed by a class that paid lip-service to Capra's Bedford Falls while at the same time endlessly working to transform it into Pottersville.
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Dec 13, 2017 | www.theguardian.com
Mueller will have to thread very carefully because he is maneuvering on a very politically charged terrain. And one cannot refrain from comparing the current situation with the many free passes the democrats were handed over by the FBI, the Department of Justice and the media which make the US look like a banana republic.ID1456161 -> Canadiman , 4 Dec 2017 08:30The mind blowing fact that Clinton sat with the Attorney General on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport "to chit-chat" and not to discuss the investigation on Clinton's very wife that was being overseen by the same AG, leaves one flabbergasted.
And the fact that Comey essentially said that Clinton's behaviour, tantamount in his own words to extreme recklessness, did not warrant prosecution was just inconceivable.
Don't forget that Trump has nearly 50 M gun-toting followers on Tweeter and that he would not hesitate to appeal to them were he to feel threatened by what he could conceive as a judicial Coup d'Etat. The respect for the institutions in the USA has never been so low.
Anna Bramwell -> etrang , 4 Dec 2017 08:28...a judge would decide if the evidence was sufficient to warrant a trial.
Actually, in the U.S. a grand jury would decide if the evidence was sufficient to warrant formal charges leading to a trial. There is also the possibility that Mueller has uncovered both Federal and NY State offenses, so charges could be brought against Kushner at either level. Mueller has been sharing information from his investigation with the NY Attorney General's Office. Trump could pardon a federal offense, but has no jurisdiction to pardon charges brought against Kushner by the State of NY.
I watched RT for 24 months before the US election. They favoured Bernie Saunders strongly before he lost to Hilary. Then they ran hustings for the smaller US parties, eg Greens, and the Libertarians , which could definitely be seen as an interference in the US election, but which as far as I know, was never mentioned in the US. They were anti Hilary but not pro Trump. And indeed, their strong anti capitalist bias would have made such support unlikely.EduardStreltsovGhost -> JonShone , 4 Dec 2017 08:28What's he lying about? More like he's denying the story peddled by the Democrats in some vain attempt at reducing his legitimacy over smashing Hillary in the elections.pretzelattack -> Atticus_Finch , 4 Dec 2017 08:28Obama and Hillary met hundreds of foreign officials. Were they colluding as well?
What is he going to prison for, again? Colluding with Israel?oddballs -> Taf1980uk , 4 Dec 2017 08:26The most anger in the media against the POTUS seems to be directed against Russia gate. Time and energy is wasted on conjecture, most 'probables will not stand in a court of law. This media hysteria deflects from the destruction of the affordable healthcare act and the tax changes good for the rich against the many. I think the people are being played.Krautolivier , 4 Dec 2017 08:21In the 1990s and 2000s a large section of the American establishment was effectively bought off by people like Prince Bandar. These are the ones that are determined that the anti-Russian policy then instigated be continued, even at the cost of slandering the current President's son-in-law. The irony is that in the meantime an effective regime change has taken place in Saudi and Bandar's bandits are mostly locked up behind bars.zerohoursuni -> damientrollope , 4 Dec 2017 08:19
It's all too funny.True, and not just hypocrisy either. This has to be seen in the context of a war, cold for now, on Russia - with China, via Iran and NK, next in line. Dangerous times, as a militarily formidable empire in economic decline looks set to take us all out. For the few who think and resist the dominant narrative - and are thereby routinely called out as 'kremlin trolls' - it is dismaying how easily folk are manipulated.cookcounty , 4 Dec 2017 08:15Your points are valid but, alas, factual truths are routinely trumped (!) by powerful mythology. Fact is, despite an appalling record since WW2, Washington and its pet institutions - IMF/World Bank/WTO - are still seen as good guys. How? Because (a) all western states have traded foreign policy independence for favoured status in Washington, (b) English as global lingua franca means American soft propaganda is lapped up across the world via its entertainment industry, and (c) all 'our' media are owned by billionaire corps or as with BBC/Graun, subject to government intimidation/market forces.
Truth is, DRT is not some horrifically new entity. (Let's not forget how HRC's 'no fly zone' for Syria promised to take us into WW3, nor her demented "we came, we saw, he died - ha ha" response to Gaddafi's sodomisation by knife blade, and more importantly to Libya's descent into hell.) As John Pilger noted, "the obsession with Trump the man – not Trump as symptom and caricature of an enduring system – beckons great danger for all of us".
I missed Jill Abramson's column about all the meetings the Obama administration held -- quite openly -- with foreign governments during the transition period between his election and his first inauguration.themandibleclaw -> SteveMilesworthy , 4 Dec 2017 08:12But since she's been demonstrably and laughably wrong about predicting future political events in the USA (see her entire body of work during the 2016 election campaign), why should she start making sense now?
It's completely possible, of course, that some as-yet-to-be-revealed piece of evidence will prove collusion -- before the election and by candidate Trump -- with the Russians. But the Flynn testimony certainly isn't it. All the heavy breathing and hysteria is simply a sign of how the media, yet again, always gravitates toward the news it wishes were true, rather than what really is true. If all Meuller has is Flynn and the Russians during the transition period, he's got nothing.
Flynn was charged with far more serious crimes which were all dropped and he was left with a charge that if he spends any time in prison, it will be about 6 months. Now, you could say for him to agree to that, he must have some juicy info - and he probably does - but what that juicy info is is just speculation. And if we are speculating, then maybe what he traded it for was nothing to do with Trump? After all, one of the charges against him was failing to register as a foreign agent on behalf of Turkey.WallyWillage , 4 Dec 2017 08:05It's alleged that Turkey wanted Flynn to extradite Gullen for his alleged involvement in Turkey's failed coup. Just this weekend, Turkey have issued an arrest warrant for a former CIA officer in relation to the failed coup. So, IF the CIA were behind the failed coup and Flynn knows this - well, a good way to silence him would be to charge him with some serious crimes and then offer to drop them in return for his silence. But, like your theory, it's just speculation.
Still no evidence of Russian collusion in Trump campaign BEFORE the election...... whatever happened after being president elect is not impeachable unless it would be after taking office.EduardStreltsovGhost -> CitizenOfTinyBlue , 4 Dec 2017 08:03The secret deep state security forces haven't been this diminished since Carter cleared the stables in the 70's - they fought back and stopped his second term ...
oddballs -> Taf1980uk , 4 Dec 2017 07:58if that were the case, Clinton, Bush and Obama would be sitting in jail right now.You can easily impeach Trump for bombing Syria's military airfield, which is by UN definition war crime of war aggression
Seeing how the case against Trump and Flynn is based on 'probable' and not hard proof its 'probable that the anti Trump campaign is directed from within the murky enclaves of the US intelligence community.EduardStreltsovGhost , 4 Dec 2017 07:52Trumps presidency could have the capability of galvanising a powerful resistance against the 2 party state for 'real change, like affordable healthcare and affordable education for ALL its people. But no its not happening, Trump is attacked on probables and undisclosed sources. A year has passed and nothing has been revealed.
Hatred against Trump deflects the anger, see the system works the US is still a democracy. Well it isn't, its a sick oligarchy run by the mega rich who own the media, 90% is owned by 5 corporations. Americans are fed the lie that their vast military empire with its 800 overseas bases are to defend US interests.
Well their not, their only function is, is to spend tax dollars that otherwise would be spent on education, health, infrastructure, things that would 'really' benefit America. Disagree, well go ahead and accuse me of being a conspiracy nut-job, in the meantime China is by peaceful means getting the mining rights in Africa, Australia, deals that matter.
The tax legislation for the few against the many is deflected by the anti-Trump hysteria based on conjecture and not proof.
Wow this is like becoming McCarthy Era 2.0. I'm just waiting for the show trials of all these so-called colluders.RelaxAndChill -> Silgen , 4 Dec 2017 07:46Crimea was and is Russian. Your mask is slipping, Vlad .StillAbstractImp , 4 Dec 2017 07:40Your ignorance is showing. I have no connection to Russia what so ever. Crimea was legally ceded to Russia over 200 years ago, by the Ottomans to Catherine the Great. Russia has never relinquished control. What the criminal organization the USSR did under Ukrainian expat Khrushchev, is irrelevant. And as Putin said , any agreement about respecting Ukraine's territorial integrity was negated when the USA and the EU fomented and financed a rebellion and revolution.
Decelerating Fascism - Is Kushner a Putin operative, too?mikedow -> Karantino , 4 Dec 2017 07:35Australia, Canada, and S. Africa supply the lion's share of gold bullion that London survives on. And the best uranium in the world. All sorts of other precious commodities as well. If you're not toeing the line on US foreign policies religiously, the Yanks will drop you.themandibleclaw -> Toastface_Killah , 4 Dec 2017 07:34backstop -> EdwardFatherby , 4 Dec 2017 07:31You are selectively choosing to refer to this one instance, but even here Obama administration were still in charge - so not very legal, was it.
I am "selectively choosing to refer to this one instance" because that's all Flynn has been charged with. Oh, and it is totally legal for a member of the incoming administration to start talks with their foreign counterparts. Here's a quote from an op-ed piece in The Hill from a law professor at Washington University.
the interest of (Russian Ambassador) Kislyak in determining the position of the new administration on sanctions is not unheard of in Washington, or necessarily untoward to raise with one of the incoming national security advisers. Ambassadors are supposed to seek changes in policies and often seek to influence officials in the early stages of administrations before policies are established. Flynn's suggestion that the Russians wait as the Trump administration unfolded its new policies is a fairly standard response of an incoming official .
http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/362813-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-the-flynn-indictment
"The problem is charging Flynn for lying. A technicality. But not charging Hillary for email server. Another technicality. That's all the public will see if no collusion proved, and will ruin credibility of the FBI and the Dems"BustedBoom , 4 Dec 2017 07:31It's not just collusion is it, what about the rampant, naked nepotism, last seen on this unashamed scale in ancient Rome?
CitizenOfTinyBlue , 4 Dec 2017 07:26So he lobbied for Israel not Russia then? Whoops. How does the author even know where Mueller's probe is heading, and which way Flynn flipped? Flynn worked much longer for the Obama administration than for Trump's.He then pushed Flynn hard to try to turn Russia around on an anti-Israel vote by the UN security council.
ConCaruthers , 4 Dec 2017 07:25You can easily impeach Trump for bombing Syria's military airfield, which is by UN definition war crime of war aggression, starting war without the Congress approval; and doing so by supporting false flag of AQ, is support of terrorists and so onOh you can't do it, of course, it was so - so presidential to bomb another country and it is just old habit and no war declaration, if country is too weak to bomb you back. And you love this exiting crazy balance of global nuclear annihilation too much, so you prefer screaming Russia, Russia to keep it hot, for wonderful military contracts.
Oh, and I have to be supporter of Putin's oligarchy with dreams of great tsars of Russia, if I care about humans survival on this planet and have very bad opinion about suicidal fools playing this stupid games.
If the US wanted to do itself a massive favour it should shine the spotlight on Robert Mueller, the man now in charge of investigating the President of these United States for "collusion" with Russia and possible "obstruction of justice" himself obstructed a congressional investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks.moonsphere -> Hydro , 4 Dec 2017 07:24Dealing with western backed coups on its own doorstep and being the only country actually to be legally fighting in Syria - a war that directly threatens its security - does not amount to global belligerence.etrang -> CraftyRabbi , 4 Dec 2017 07:14John Edwin -> OlivesNightie , 4 Dec 2017 07:13Mueller could charge/indict Kushner or Trump Jr under New York state criminal statutes
But not for crimes relating to federal elections or conspiring with Russia.
Clinton lied under oathJohn Edwin -> SoAmerican , 4 Dec 2017 07:11The logan act is a dead law no one will be prosecuted for a act that has never been used... plus the president elect can talk to any foreign leader he or she wishes to use and even talk deals even if a current president for 2 months is still in office...emiliofloris -> Sowester , 4 Dec 2017 07:08Billsykesdoggy -> reinhardpolley , 4 Dec 2017 06:55I am not sure any level of scandal will make much difference to Trump or his supporters. They simply see this as an elitist conspiracy and not amount of evidence of wrongdoing will have an impact.
So far the level of scandal is below that of Whitewater/Lewinsky, and that was a very low level indeed. What "evidence of wrongdoing" is there? Nothing, that's why they charged Flynn with lying to investigators. It's important to keep in mind that the he did nor lie about actual crimes. Perhaps that's going to change as the investigation proceeds, but so far this is nothing more than a partisan lawfare fishing expedition.
<blockquoteSpecifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization.>braciole -> Karantino , 4 Dec 2017 06:55So Trump authorized Obama's talks with Macron last week?
Don't think so.
emiliofloris -> Karantino , 4 Dec 2017 06:53Because they attempted to covertly influence a general election in order to weaken the US.
And your evidence for this is what exactly? As for countries trying to influence elections in other countries, I'm all for it particularly when one of the candidates is murderous, arrogant and stupid.
BTW, in Honduras after supporting a coup against the democratically-elected president because he sought a referendum on allowing presidents to serve two terms, you'd think the United States would interfere when his non-democratically-elected replacement used a "packed" supreme court to change the constitution to allow presidents to serve more than one term to at least stop him stealing an election as he is now doing/has done. But they didn't and that hasn't stopped the United States whining that Evo Morales is being undemocratic by trying to extend the number of terms he can serve.
technotherapy , 4 Dec 2017 06:46Because they attempted to covertly influence a general election in order to weaken the US.
Should all countries which try to influence elections be treated as enemies? Where do you set the threshold? If we go by the actual evidence, Russia seems to have bought some Facebook ads and was allegedly involved in exposing HRC's meddling with the Democratic primaries. Compare that to the influence that countries like Israel and the Gulf Arabs exert on American politics and elections. Are you seriously claiming that Russia's influence is bigger or more decisive?
The goal of weakening the US is also highly debatable. Accepting for a moment that Russia tried to tip the balance in favor of Trump, would America be stronger if it were engaged more actively in Syria and Ukraine? Is there a specific example where Trump's administration weakened the American position to the advantage of Russia? And how is the sustained anti-Russian information warfare helping anyone but the Chinese?
themandibleclaw -> Simon Denham , 4 Dec 2017 06:44The clues that Kushner has been pulling the strings on Russia are everywhere... He then pushed Flynn hard to try to turn Russia around on an anti-Israel vote by the UN security council.And Russia didn't turn, so hardly a clue that Kushner was pulling strings with any effect. What this clue does suggest however, is that Israel pressured/colluded with the Trump Team to undermine the Obama administrations policy towards a UN resolution on illegal settlements. The elephant in the room is Israels influence on US politics.
moonsphere -> SoAmerican , 4 Dec 2017 06:44Can someone please actually tell us what Flynn/Jared/Trump is supposed to have done.
In relation to the "lying" charge - In December, Flynn (in his role as incoming National Security Advisor) was told to talk to the Russians by Kushner (in his role as incoming special advisor). In these conversations, Flynn told the Russians to be patient regarding sanctions as things may change when Trump becomes President. All of this is totally legal and is what EVERY new adminstration does. Flynn had his phoned tapped by the FBI so they knew he had talked to the Russian about sanctions - they also knew the conversation was totally legal - but when they asked him about it, he said he didn't discuss sanctions. So Flynn is being charged about lying about something that was totally legal for him to do. That's it.
These days "US influence" seems to consist of bombing Middle Eastern countries back to the bronze age for reasons that defy easy logic. Anything that reduces that kind of influence would be welcome.reinhardpolley -> Simon Denham , 4 Dec 2017 06:33The Logan Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 953 [1948]) is a single federal statute making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments against the interests of the United States. Specifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization.themandibleclaw , 4 Dec 2017 06:22
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Logan+ActAll those thinking this is the beginning of the end of Trump are going to be disappointed. Just look at the charges so far. Manafort has been charged with money laundering and not registering as a foreign agent - however, both of those charges pre-date him working for Trump. Flynn has been charged with lying to the FBI about speaking to the Russians - even though him speaking to the Russians in his role as National Security Advisor to the President-elect was not only totally legal, it was the norm. And this took place in December, after the election.damientrollope , 4 Dec 2017 06:15So the 2 main players have been charged with things that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign, and lets not forget the point of the investigation is to find out if Trump's campaign colluded with the Russians to win the election. Manafort's charges related to before working for the Trump campaign whilst Flynn's came after Trump won the Presidency, neither of which have anything to do with the election. As much as I wish Trump wasn't President, don't get your hopes up that this is going anywhere.
Gross hypocrisy on the US governments side. They have, since WW2 interfered with other countries elections, invaded, and killed millions worldwide, and are still doing so. Where were the FBI investigations then? Non existent. US politicians and the military hierarchy are completely immune from any prosecutions when it comes down to overseas illegal interference.Boojay , 4 Dec 2017 06:15But now this Russian debacle, and at last they've woken up, because another country had the temerity to turn the tables on them. And I think if this was Bush or Obama we would never have heard a thing about it. Everybody hates the Dotard, because he's an obese dick with an IQ to match.
Nothing will happen to Trump, It's all bollocks. You've all watched too many Spielberg films, bad guys win, and they win most of the time.formerathlete -> vacantspace , 4 Dec 2017 06:15
Trump is the real face of America, America like all governments are narcissistic, they will cheat, steal, kill, if it benefits them. It's called national interest, and it's number one on any leader's job list. Watch fog of war with Robert McNamara, fantastic and terrifying to see how it works.Hugh Mad -> JonShone , 4 Dec 2017 06:10when American presidents were rational, well balanced with progressive views we had.... decent American healthcare? Equality of opportunity? Gun laws that made it safe to walk the streets?
Say who, what an a where now????????? Since when has the US EVER had any of the three things that you mentioned???
If ever, then it was a loooooong time before the pilgrim fathers ever landed.
JonShone -> Hugh Mad , 4 Dec 2017 06:06The US has also been meddling in other countries elections for years, and doubtless most Americans neither know or care about that! So it's perhaps it's best to simply term them a 'rival', most people should be able to agree on that.
That is the bottom line, yes. People view the world through west = good and Russia = bad, while both make economic and political decisions that serve the interests of their people respectively. Ultimately, I think people are scared that the West's monopoly on global influence is slipping, to as you said, a rival.
You are right that calling Russia the US enemy needs justification, but these threads often deteriorate into arguments of the yes it is/no it isn't variety.RelaxAndChill , 4 Dec 2017 05:59Gallup have been polling Americans for the past couple of decades on this. The last time I read about it a couple of years ago 70% of Americans had unfavourable views of Russia, ranging from those who saw them as an enemy (a smaller amount) through to those who saw them as a threat.
It's certain that their ideals and goals run counter to those generally held in the US in many ways. But let's not forget that the US' ideals are often, if not generally, divergent from their interests and US foreign policy since 1945 has been responsible for countless deaths, perhaps more than Russia's.
The US has also been meddling in other countries elections for years, and doubtless most Americans neither know or care about that! So it's perhaps it's best to simply term them a 'rival', most people should be able to agree on that.
variation31 -> Sowester , 4 Dec 2017 05:50All the signs in the Russia probe point to ..How the liberals and the Democrats don't give a damm about the USA or the world's political scene, just some endless 'sore loser' witch hunt. So much could be achieved by the improving of relations with Russia. Crimea was and is Russian. Let Trump have a go as POTUS and then judge him. He wants to befriend Putin and if done it would help solve Syrian, Nth Korean and other global problems.
They simply see this as an elitist conspiracy and not amount of evidence of wrongdoing will have an impact
Whereas if it's a Democrat in the spotlight, these same dipshits see it as an élitist cover-up and no lack of evidence of wrongdoing will have an impact. If anything, lack of evidence is evidence of cover-up which is therefore proof of evidence.
These cynical games they play with veracity and human honesty are a very pure form of evil.
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Dec 12, 2017 | www.unz.com
Mark James , December 12, 2017 at 5:57 am GMT
Anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 7:22 am GMTI'm really concerned an attack on Iran is a correct assessment Philip. They are not a threat to the US and while I think we will be in a support capacity -- with Israel obviously -- to a bunker buster attack it will be regarded as US backed war throughout the Islamic world. Trump may be too weak to resist Netanyahu's best sales pitch.
Tillerson will be gone sooner or later: No question, perhaps the week between Christmas and New Year?
Cotton and Pompeo: Pompeo may have problems with the Mueller probe. Cotton has a number of rumors in his past and maybe they are just unfortunate talk? But I don't see him at CIA (we shall see?)
The Neocons are turning up at MSNBC of late. In addition to Podhoretz, Brooks, Kristol, we are now seeing E. Johnson, B. Stephens, D. Pletka on the scene as regular rotation players. No doubt where they will be leading. Moving in where opportunities abound for some reason? At least two (Halperin, Ford) aren't around anymore on Coffee Joe.
Well, if the rumours about Cotton and Pompeo appointments materialise, Trump might as well move his own office to JerusalemFran Macadam , December 12, 2017 at 7:42 am GMTWe're all just hapless passengers on the Neocon Titanic, unable to influence what's playing out on the bridge. Steady as she goes on the unsinkable U.S.S.Realist , December 12, 2017 at 9:08 am GMT@Mark JamesPhilip Smeeton , December 12, 2017 at 11:02 am GMT"Trump may be too weak to resist Netanyahu's best sales pitch." Trump is an Israeli sycophant ..a loser.
From the movie Iron Sky, meant as a condemnation of Nazism, but inadvertently conveying a sensible message about the merits of purity.Anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 11:23 am GMTRenate Richter:
This is very simple. The world is sick, but we are the doctors. The world is anemic, but we are the vitamin. The world is weary, but we are the strength. We are here to make the world healthy once again, with hard work, with honesty, with clarity, with decency. We are the product of loving mothers and brave fathers. We are the embodiment of love and bravery! We are the gift of both God and Science. We are the answer to the question. We are the promise delivered to all mankind. For that, we raise our hands to one Nation. We step to the beat of one drum. We march to the beat of one heart and it is this song that we will sing to this world. We are the people who carry the children on our shoulders in the same way that our fathers carried us and their fathers carried them. We are the one people united and strong. We are the one people with certainty, moral certainty. We are invincible and we have no fear because the truth makes us wise.
@peterAUSjacques sheete , December 12, 2017 at 11:53 am GMTWell, if conflict is simply air assault on Iranian nuclear facilities that shouldn't be a problem for either party. Israelis/Americans bomb a bit and then everything goes back to normal. Something as that cruise missile launch on Syria.
That US missile attack on the Syrian airport cost Trump a lot of domestic and international support for zero benefit...
Greg Bacon , Website December 12, 2017 at 12:46 pm GMTI do not even want to guess at what kind of insanity
Insanity. That's the key. Sick beyond redemption. No rational person could ever begin to understand their motives. Somehow the jackals need to be restrained.
We see the same usual suspects time and again, waving their pom-poms lustily cheering on endless war that does NOT help or benefit the USA. In fact, it is destroying our nation economically, spiritually and politically.Den Lille Abe , December 12, 2017 at 1:43 pm GMTFrom an April 2003 Haaretz article:
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible.
This is a war of an elite. [Tom] Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/white-man-s-burden-1.14110
Yet if you point out the obvious, that our foreign policy has been hijacked by an element whose first loyalty is to Israel, you will catch all sorts of hell, be banned from making comments on blogs and news sites, or like the brave Mr. Giraldi, lose your job. And be blasted with the worn-out canard of being an anti-Semite. Maybe even a Jew hater, all because you show concern for the nation you love and are loyal to.
Will Americans ever realize they are being played for fools by a country and Zionist con artists which doesn't give a tinkers damn about us or will we keep jumping up and down to the pom-pom waving?
Yes all this Newspeak, to hide the fact that the US is a threat in anyone that disagrees with themZ-man , December 12, 2017 at 2:18 pm GMTOf course I hope you're wrong Phil. While Pompeo would be not good, Tillerson has been a big disappointment with his latest statements on Crimea and Ukraine included.Zumbuddi , December 12, 2017 at 2:22 pm GMTCotton would be another matter altogether and even though there is a 'collegial spirit' in the Senate I would hope that Rand Paul and other senators with common sense would squash this guys nomination. Even if he has to carry himself back from Kentucky, broken ribs and all, to squash this Neocon stooge Cotton. Also, I'm hopping there are some boys in the closet when it comes to Cotton. lol
@LondonBobAnonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:10 pm GMTFaith in Bush the OLDER is misplaced. In 1979 he stood shoulder to shoulder w/ Bibi and Benzion Netenyahu, and Midge Decter & other neocons, in Jerusalem, as they drafted the blueprint for GWOT. Planning went so far as to name the 7 states to take out. USSR was #1 at the time. Jews got Jews Who had been highly educated at Russian expense – out of Russia, now Russia is back in the crosshairs.
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nsa , December 12, 2017 at 3:24 pm GMTAmericans are stoopid and cowardly fucks for being so easily manipulated by the Jew.
Not so much anymore. Meanwhile, didn't the Muslims spend five years fighting each-other right on the Israeli border? But wait – they did attack Israel once – and apologised:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-28/isis-apologized-israel-attacking-idf-soldiers
I don't know what to tell you
@peterAUSMichael Kenny , December 12, 2017 at 3:41 pm GMT"the American public isn't as gullible as before ."
Ha, Ha. You obviously do not live here. 99% of Americans have a flat screen TV installed in their living rooms and believe everything (jooie managed images and info) spewing forth from it. More than 50% of Americans have multiple flat screen TV in their homes so they can be sure not to miss the latest disinfo or lies.
.... ... ...
The "problem" is that the whole American "business model" is based on global economic supremacy, which means, essentially, the dollar as world reserve currency. If that goes, the whole US house of cards will probably implode, Soviet-style. That requires unchallenged American "world leadership". The big threat to the "American model" isn't the EU and certainly not the Russian Federation. It's China. 1.4 billion people and rapidly heading for global economic hegemony. To say nothing of a rising India at 1.2 billion. At 300 million, the US is small beans. How to ward off the Yellow Peril? That's the problem the US hegemonists had to resolve.DaveE , December 12, 2017 at 3:45 pm GMT... ... ...
@Anonymousanonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:47 pm GMTYeah, yeah, yeah big bad ISIS. The Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. "Keeping Fools and Idiots At Each Other's Throats". Since 1950. I don't know what to tell you ..
@jacques sheeteanonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:58 pm GMTSomehow the jackals need to be restrained.
It's not that difficult to strategize HOW to go about "restraining the jackals." 99 44/100% of what ziocons accuse others of is projection. They say, "They [_____ Iran, ISIS, Palestinians, Russians - fill in the blank] understand only force." This projects that the only thing that will restrain psychopathic Israel is force.
When an Iranian nuclear engineer was assassinated in Tehran, Ronen Bergman told Brian Williams that "Israel has used assassination more than any other state; not even Stalin or Hitler used assassination as much as Israel. . . ."
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@Ben Frankanonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:58 pm GMTSo far the President has proved much smarter than most people expected him to be
Exactamundo, Ben Frank (any relation to Anne, Princess of the Ballpoint Pen?). Naming Jerusalem the capital of Israel was fucking brilliant. Don't you worry your pretty little head about all the US forces in the multiple bases in the region that are accessible to mad-as-hornets Muslims; Israel will have their backs, fer shur.
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Come to think of it, maybe Trump can burnish his "much smarter-ness" by taking a page out of Reagan's playbook: Immediately after the first US soldier is plinked by an Angry Arab, Trump should pull ALL US FORCES out of the region: do a Reagan-post-Black Hawk down.
If the Israelis want to stir the pot, let them stand over the steam-heat and wield the spoon. We're outa there.
The people of the ME can't catch a break. Since being pried away from the Ottoman empire a hundred years ago they've been the plaything of various western countries. Their national borders drawn up by distant foreigners, they've been interfered with constantly, their regimes dictated by foreigners. Then the selfsame westerners turn around and point to their backwardness as proof that they're incapable of doing anything on their own.Rurik , December 12, 2017 at 4:21 pm GMTThe US is expansionist, projecting itself all over the globe and uses force against anyone who resists. Force is all it understands. What happens when the irresistible force bumps into the immovable object? War hysteria, of which we've had an unending amount for the past three generations. Objectively there's nothing conservative about the so-called neocons. They're hardly any different from fascists except the rhetoric is different. Mussolini had limits as to how much territory he wanted to conquer for his empire unlike the US which recognizes no limits.
SolontoCroesus , December 12, 2017 at 4:39 pm GMTreplaced at CIA by Senator Tom Cotton.
it was faint, and barely perceptible, but at some level, I did actually tremble when I read those words. Cotton is the new John McCain. The ultimate traitor to this nation and its people and all people of good will on the planet and every tenet of decency known to the universe
a lickspittle to Sheldon Adelson and everything that repulsive toad represents. if Cotton is exalted to head the CIA, I'll have to think very hard about leaving these shores. perhaps Bobby Fischer was right, and the ZUSA is endemically, irredeemably evil.
there can be no doubt that the zio-Fiend is the incarnation of evil itself, but I always keep hoping that the good people of the ZUS will repudiate the zio-Fiend- that has them waging serial wars all over the planet to benefit the Jews. As their infrastructure crumbles back home, and their veterans can't get health care, and the jobs are 'in' and outsourced to the third world. what will it take to wake up the bovine, cud-chewing sheople?!
their children come home in body bags, or with their souls so eviscerated by the sheer evil of the wars they're forced to fight, that they often just 'snuff it' as the only escape from their nightmares. (and the realization that the ZUSA is a drooling fiend and that they've murdered innocent people and destroyed nations on its behalf)
those young people can not abide the evil that the ZUS government has become, and their only salvation is to end their young lives.
for those of us with more choices at hand, why can't we finally and simply repudiate the zio-scum who've done us and so many others so much harm?!
NOT TOM COTTON!!!!!
fuck no!@SolontoCroesusAstuteobservor II , December 12, 2017 at 4:43 pm GMTPS If the USA / American people and their representatives conformed foreign as well as economic policy to the vision of George Washington rather than Louis Brandeis -- > Benjamin Netanyahu & fellow psychopaths and traitors, USA would engage with OBOR rather than attempt to destroy it.
Check out anon20171212′s comment at #21, above http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/bad-moon-rising/#comment-2115106
Destruction (and deception) are the way of the Talmudists. Even Heinrich Graetz, the Germanophilic Jew who authored the first modern history of the Jewish people, had nothing but opprobrium to heap on Talmudists.
https://archive.org/details/historyofthejews014022mbp
The American 'way' is not the way of the Talmud. Christian values are not Talmudic values. George Washington's legacy was not Talmudic, it was America First :
@AnonymousKen S , December 12, 2017 at 4:47 pm GMTdoesn't matter, we are still the ones doing the dirty work. there is no escape from the responsibility. it is like a hitman claiming he is a professional, it is just business. that doesn't fly.
What's with it with neoconservative Israel lackeys like Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz graduating from a prestigious and supposedly left-wing school like Harvard? Are they book-smart without common sense? The country would be better off if Cotton stayed in the Senate. He can do less damage if 1 of 100. Plus, the shelf-life of anyone in the Trump admin seems to be very short – and he'd better not have groped any Harvard classmates, who might just be waiting in the wings to destroy his career.Seamus Padraig , December 12, 2017 at 5:34 pm GMTAs recently as a month ago, I was still willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. But it should now be obvious to all what a total zio-muppet he really is. If there's any silver lining in all of this, it's the fact that the Jew-media have expended so much effort in attacking Trump that he'll now make a very poor spokesman for their cause abroad.Frank Walus , December 12, 2017 at 7:24 pm GMTBTW, I still don't see an attack on Iran as being very likely. If Russia and China would not greenlight an attack on Syria, they will be doubly reluctant to greenlight an attack on Iran.
The "democracy" the neocons want to push is the one in which (((mass media))) successfully lobotomizes the electorate into thinking it has democracy. The zombies then make their way to the polls seeking "hope & change" but with no choice. Hegemony is the goal, not democracy.Joe Wong , December 12, 2017 at 8:04 pm GMTTrump may have been skeptical as a candidate about America's role as policeman of the world, but the establishment knives are out and he might (correctly?) surmise that the only way to stay in office is to make the ziocons happy. Even Bill Kristol would see the error in never-Trump_vs_deep_state if bombs started falling on Iran.
@peterAUSCharles Pewitt , December 12, 2017 at 8:14 pm GMTAmerican has an all volunteer armed forces (mercenary), they are paid to kill or be killed, their fates is only a few seconds on the screens if the MSM decided to air them, otherwise the wars and the American soldiers' lives have nothing to do with the American public. Mayhem in far away land in out of sight and out of mind. Citing the American public gullibility is really a residual sentiment of old days cold war mentality and trying to attach some kind of morality to the wars the American has been fighting. American has long been demonstrated they are just as morally defunct imperialist as the British and their mentor, the Romans.
The real issue is how to finance the war, as long as the war does not cause hyper inflation in the USA, the warmongers in the Washington beltway will go ahead with the war without much concern, with EU, Australia, Japan and S Korea in line paying the bills, the American should be able to wage another regime change war in the ME without much difficulty.
Tom Cotton is not to be trusted. Many gave US Senator Tom Cotton credit for his offering a bill that would cut legal immigration in half and would significantly reduce illegal immigration. It is now clear that the immigration reduction ploy proffered by Tom Cotton was a sneaky way to mollify the White Core American voter base of President Trump.Z-man , December 12, 2017 at 8:22 pm GMTTom Cotton is a stooge for Sheldon Adelson and the Neo-Conservatives. The Neo-Conservatives know they are highly vulnerable on the immigration issue and the national question. That is why they sent their puppet Tom Cotton out with instructions to bang the pot on reducing immigration.
Recently, the Neo-Conservative-controlled, Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal gave Tom Cotton a half page, above the fold puff piece where Tom Cotton is said to be offering a foreign policy fit for "Jacksonian America." I think Tom Cotton must be referring to Michael Jackson or some other Jackson, and not General Andrew Jackson. Having some small portion of Scotch-Irish ancestry myself, and having ancestors who pioneered Tennessee, I don't think General Andrew Jackson would support the Israel First foreign policy of Tom Cotton.
IMMIGRATION and the NATIONAL QUESTION are the two things that will finally dislodge the nation-wrecking Neo-Conservatives and their politician puppets from the ruling class of the American Empire.
@Greg BaconVeranon , December 12, 2017 at 8:25 pm GMTYet if you point out the obvious, that our foreign policy has been hijacked by an element whose first loyalty is to Israel, you will catch all sorts of hell, be banned from making comments on blogs and news sites, or like the brave Mr. Giraldi, lose your job. And be blasted with the worn-out canard of being an anti-Semite. Maybe even a Jew hater, all because you show concern for the nation you love and are loyal to.
If you remember what happened to Rick Sanchez, the former talking head of NBC and CNN when he was pushed into calling out the Jew in a 'gotcha' interview as he sarcastically replied that yeah Jews are underrepresented in the media. He was gone in '60 seconds'!
Whatever happened to Rick Sanchez??? LOL!!!
Re: At the time, I agreed, but I did note that the neoconservatives have proven to be remarkable resilient, particularly as many of them have remained true to their Democratic Party values on nearly everything but foreign policy, where they are irredeemable hawks, hostile to Russia and Iran and always reliably in the corner of Israel.Priss Factor , Website December 12, 2017 at 9:50 pm GMT
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Of course. The Jewish Neocons and their "useful idiots," whether "bought and paid for" or voluntarily enlisted, are necessarily "liberal" in relation to domestic policy because the idea is to destroy all Western and Christian norms and values by means of cultural marxist "critical theory." And it's working very well. The mass media and the educational system have hopelessly corrupted American and European minds with this profoundly subversive "intellectual" garbage.And when it comes to foreign policy, of course the Neocons are globalists, like the international bankers whom they serve. Israel first, because they are not there to defend their country's interests, but to defend Israel's, in accordance with the permanent goal of Eretz Ysrael and world hegemony in accordance with the ultimate goal of Jewish supremacy via the money power, and in preparation for their "messiah". It's all disguised as for the sake of American greatness and "our values."
The Neocons are nothing less than a parasitical foreign body which has us thinking in accordance with its interests; in fact they are mortal enemies, nothing less. The Western goyim–as well as innocent Jews here and in Israel itself–will be cheerfully sacrificed by the Zionists, who serve darker forces and interests than those of their people. Western humanity has been rendered helpless because they are intellectually helpless and because in consequence they have been dispossessed of deep faith and corresponding real virtues. This was noted years ago by Solzhenitsyn, among others. Ideas rule human beings for good or ill, since we are thinking beings. But when the ideas that determine us are profoundly wrong and when intellectual chaos and unbridled individualism reign, nothing real can be accomplished. However, in due time vincit omnia veritas –the Real has the last word. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."
North Korea's survival strategy is "If you invade us, we will blow up South Korea and maybe even Tokyo." Ruled by a vile regime but with rational concern for survival, even if it has no moral right to survive. But then, what is the other option? South Korea is a puppet state of US globalist empire. If NK was ruled by wiser people, its case would be made more intelligently. It would tell the world community that it needs for defense given US record in the Middle East and North Africa. But it's ruled by some egotistical brat-boy whose idea of culture is Dennis Rodman and Rap trash-talking.JackOH , December 12, 2017 at 10:04 pm GMTAs different as NK and Jewish Power, they have one thing in common: WGYG or We Go, You Go. The idea is that if they are destroyed, they will take others with them.
Jewish Power pulled this off in 2008. When Lehman Brothers wasn't bailed out by the government, Wall Street pushed a 'too big to fail' scheme and threatened Total Collapse of the Economy UNLESS it was showered with super-generous bailouts that would eventually come to enrich the banks during a severe recession for most Americans. Bush couldn't do anything about it except go along. Obama bailed out Wall Street. And McCain would have done the same had he won. Jewish Wall Street power held a gun to the head of the entire US economy and said 'Give us money, OR we will take ALL OF YOU down with us.'
The system is rigged so that a major collapse of Jewish Power will trigger total collapse of the entire system. It's been wired that way. The whole tower will collapse. So, if anyone tries to cut the wire of Jewish Power, kaboom, the whole thing blows up, and everyone dies. Gentiles must carry Jewish Power like a crate of nitroglycerin. One false step and Kaboom.
Phil, thanks.anon , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 10:52 pm GMT"Tom [Cotton] is completely owned by the Israeli lobby."
" . . . [Nikki] Haley is stupid. And ambitious. And is also owned by the Israeli lobby . . .".
My knowledge of foreign policy is headline-quality only. My knowledge of some domestic policy is pretty good. I've been on the public stump in my area. The reality of American policy, as I've seen it, is that it's bought and paid for. There is no "public interest", no "national interest". I'm not even sure there's an America, in the sense of a people joined by some common values. Sometimes I think of America as an agglomeration of rackets. You're goddamned right I don't like thinking this way.
There are only insider players who bankroll and blackmail their way into getting the decisions they want. I wish I could say something high-minded, but I can't.
@Priss FactorFB , December 13, 2017 at 12:03 am GMTIndia and Pakistan have nukes. How would they respond to an Israeli Sampson Option?
How about China? An Izzie attack on European capitals could destroy a lot of Chinese investment. China has sufficient nuclear capability to detach Israel from the Mediterranean littoral and create an irradiated submerged island.
Does van Crevald think Putin will sit on his hands and wait a thousand years for the dust to clear?
van Crevald says Israel can hit Rome. That's zionism's wet dream, to completely obliterate Rome.
How many Jews live a parasitical life in Rome and other European capitals?Can Izzies reach USA? Didn't think so. What do they think would happen to hundreds of Jewish institutions, and Jewish people, in USA if Israel destroys Europe -- again?
People need to let go of the idea that Dump is anything but a conman and a weak one at thatFB , December 13, 2017 at 12:14 am GMTThe office of President holds a lot of authority that Dump has not been able [or willing] to wield that speaks to his own weakness as a leader
It's time to admit that he is not the messiah that many Lunchpail Joes wanted to believe
As to the specifics of this article yes I agree with Mr. Giraldi that the neocons are back in the driver's seat if they ever left in the first place
Exhibit One is Jared Kushner the Clown Prince of the Shite House. This is the guy who has inflicted most of the damage on Dump starting with his advice to dump Flynn. Dump was under zero pressure to do any such thing the neocon Pence is the one who demanded Flynn's head. Dump could have pushed back there was nothing wrong with Flynn the incoming National Security Adviser speaking to the Russians or anyone else and what he spoke of with the Russians was in lobbying THEM in the US interest not the other way round
Dump's second big mistake was firing Comey again on the advice of Kushner. Which got the Mueller ball rolling. Some have rightly drawn the parallels of Kushner whispering in Dump's ear to the same role of Kissinger vis a vis Nixon's downfall
Then Kushner appeared to connive with his buddy KSA Clown Prince MBS to engineer the Hariri fiasco [which Tillerson managed to "deftly undo..."]
' Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was accompanying the president during his Asia tour at the time of the Saudi-engineered initiative, was "completely blindsided" by the move, as several senior Middle East diplomats confirmed to TAC.
While Tillerson would later be accused of being "totally disengaged" from the crisis, several former and current U.S. diplomats have told us that just precisely the opposite was the case '
' The unlikely hero in all of this might well be Rex Tillerson, who quietly engineered a U.S. policy at odds with the views of Donald Trump -- and his son-in-law. The exact details of how Tillerson pulled this off remain unknown ("I think Tillerson just told Trump what he was going to do," the senior diplomat with whom we spoke speculates, "and then just did it.") '
So that's the backstory right there about why the neocons are agitating for Tillerson's ouster. I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Giraldi's characterization of Tillerson as
' a somewhat bumbling businessman adept at dealing in energy futures contracts who has been struggling with reducing State's enormously bloated payroll '
That is a useless statement on many levels Tillerson deftly managed what is arguably America's most important corporation in what is surely the most strategic and geopolitical global industry energy
The global oil trade is 14 trillion dollars even at today's prices and the petrodollar is the underpinning of the entire US system a free ride for printing free money because every nation has to buy US dollars to buy or sell oil. In 1971
' I was informed at a White House meeting that U.S. diplomats had let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries know that they could charge as much as they wanted for their oil, but that the United States would treat it as an act of war not to keep their oil proceeds in U.S. dollar assets '
Writes economist Michael Hudson" from personal recollection of the many meetings he had at the WH
This whole saga surrounding Dump's readiness to tie the can to Tillerson is proof positive if any more were needed that conman Dump has been a fake from the beginning
If the neocons are ascendant and back in the driver's seat it is no one's fault but the Dumpster
He has cast his lot with Kushner who appears to be the neocons' Trojan Horse
There can be no more sympathy or understanding anymore for Dump
If we recall his campaign rhetoric of 'draining the swamp' and rebuilding America's failing infrastructure improving relations with Russia all good things
we must also recall that he has been vehemently anti-Iran from the get-go
One has to ask why ?
Iran is a completely Israeli-owned issue Iran has nothing to do with the interests of the US other than to benefit leading US industries like aircraft manufacturing which were immediately rewarded with a $100 billion order of Boeing aircraft in the aftermath of the Obama nuclear deal
That vehement anti-Iran attitude even on the campaign trail should have been a red flag to everyone
Even Hellary would have been better in that regard and as for the Russia 'issue' what could Hellary or the US to do Russia anyway ?
Militarily nothing even in Syria the US military would certainly not go for an open war against Russia neither would the regional players hosting US bases which would need to be on board for such an adventure
same goes for the breakaway region of eastern Ukraine
Germany and France are anyway moving closer to Russia, which has de facto established itself as an energy distribution superpower for the continent and for China
The big picture is that the petrodollar and the free ride for US prosperity is living on borrowed time China is the world's biggest energy importer and is not going to support the petrodollar forever
Already an alternative financial architecture is being built and the BRICS countries now outpace the combined GDP of the G7 so the writing is on the wall
Dump has shown himself to be a conman first and an incredibly weak president he deserves no sympathy or support
The neocons are of course insane they are picking fights with Iran, Venezuela and others who are going to be the first to ditch the petrodollar and accelerate the tipping point to the new global financial order that is going to impoverish the US overnight
The same neocons are also the ones who are undermining US demographics because their Ponzi scheme economy is based on perpetual growth which, in turn, requires perpetual population growth which means more immigration. Also the immigration keeps the wages low which is just extra gravy for the Plutocracy
The US will be a white-minority country by 2050 much of the Southwest already is
None of that is going to change when the party is over and the Titanic sinks the handful of necons and Plutocrats will have their lifeboats ready
@FBSorry my link to the Kushner role in the Hariri circus and Tillerson's save did not come through here it is: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/kushner-kept-tillerson-in-the-dark-on-saudi-lebanon-move/
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Dec 10, 2017 | consortiumnews.com
When a Department of Defense intelligence report about the Syrian rebel movement became public in May 2015, lots of people didn't know what to make of it. After all, what the report said was unthinkable – not only that Al Qaeda had dominated the so-called democratic revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for years, but that the West continued to support the jihadis regardless, even to the point of backing their goal of creating a Sunni Salafist principality in the eastern deserts.
Journalist James Foley shortly before he was executed by an Islamic State operative in August 2014.
The United States lining up behind Sunni terrorism – how could this be? How could a nice liberal like Barack Obama team up with the same people who had brought down the World Trade Center?
It was impossible, which perhaps explains why the report remained a non-story long after it was released courtesy of a Judicial Watch freedom-of-information lawsuit . The New York Times didn't mention it until six months later while the Washington Post waited more than a year before dismissing it as "loopy" and "relatively unimportant." With ISIS rampaging across much of Syria and Iraq, no one wanted to admit that U.S. attitudes were ever anything other than hostile.
But three years earlier, when the Defense Intelligence Agency was compiling the report, attitudes were different. Jihadis were heroes rather than terrorists, and all the experts agreed that they were a low-risk, high-yield way of removing Assad from office.
After spending five days with a Syrian rebel unit, for instance, New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers wrote that the group "mixes paramilitary discipline, civilian policing, Islamic law, and the harsh demands of necessity with battlefield coldness and outright cunning."
Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, assured the Washington Post that "al Qaeda is a fringe element" among the rebels, while, not to be outdone, the gossip site Buzzfeed published a pin-up of a "ridiculously photogenic" jihadi toting an RPG.
"Hey girl," said the subhead. "Nothing sexier than fighting the oppression of tyranny."
And then there was Foreign Policy, the magazine founded by neocon guru Samuel P. Huntington, which was most enthusiastic of all. Gary Gambill's " Two Cheers for Syrian Islamists ," which ran on the FP web site just a couple of weeks after the DIA report was completed, didn't distort the facts or make stuff up in any obvious way. Nonetheless, it is a classic of U.S. propaganda. Its subhead glibly observed: "So the rebels aren't secular Jeffersonians. As far as America is concerned, it doesn't much matter."
Assessing the Damage
Five years later, it's worth a second look to see how Washington uses self-serving logic to reduce an entire nation to rubble.
First a bit of background. After displacing France and Britain as the region's prime imperial overlord during the 1956 Suez Crisis and then breaking with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser a few years later, the United States committed itself to the goal of defeating Arab nationalism and Soviet Communism, two sides of the same coin as far as Washington was concerned. Over the next half-century, this would mean steering Egypt to the right with assistance from the Saudis, isolating Libyan strong man Muammar Gaddafi, and doing what it could to undermine the Syrian Baathist regime as well.
William Roebuck, the American embassy's chargé d'affaires in Damascus, thus urged Washington in 2006 to coordinate with Egypt and Saudi Arabia to encourage Sunni Syrian fears of Shi'ite Iranian proselytizing even though such concerns are "often exaggerated." It was akin to playing up fears of Jewish dominance in the 1930s in coordination with Nazi Germany.
A year later, former NATO commander Wesley Clark learned of a classified Defense Department memo stating that U.S. policy was now to "attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years," first Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. (Quote starts at 2:07 .)
Since the United States didn't like what such governments were doing, the solution was to install more pliable ones in their place. Hence Washington's joy when the Arab Spring struck Syria in March 2011 and it appeared that protesters would soon topple the Baathists on their own.
Even when lofty democratic rhetoric gave way to ominous sectarian chants of "Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the coffin," U.S. enthusiasm remained strong. With Sunnis accounting for perhaps 60 percent of the population, strategists figured that there was no way Assad could hold out against religious outrage welling up from below.
Enter Gambill and the FP. The big news, his article began, is that secularists are no longer in command of the burgeoning Syrian rebel movement and that Sunni Islamists are taking the lead instead. As unfortunate as this might seem, he argued that such a development was both unavoidable and far from entirely negative.
"Islamist political ascendancy is inevitable in a majority Sunni Muslim country brutalized for more than four decades by a secular minoritarian dictatorship," he wrote in reference to the Baathists. "Moreover, enormous financial resources are pouring in from the Arab-Islamic world to promote explicitly Islamist resistance to Assad's Alawite-dominated, Iranian-backed regime."
So the answer was not to oppose the Islamists, but to use them. Even though "the Islamist surge will not be a picnic for the Syrian people," Gambill said, "it has two important silver linings for US interests." One is that the jihadis "are simply more effective fighters than their secular counterparts" thanks to their skill with "suicide bombings and roadside bombs."
The other is that a Sunni Islamist victory in Syria will result in "a full-blown strategic defeat" for Iran, thereby putting Washington at least part way toward fulfilling the seven-country demolition job discussed by Wesley Clark.
"So long as Syrian jihadis are committed to fighting Iran and its Arab proxies," the article concluded, "we should quietly root for them – while keeping our distance from a conflict that is going to get very ugly before the smoke clears. There will be plenty of time to tame the beast after Iran's regional hegemonic ambitions have gone down in flames."
Deals with the Devil
The U.S. would settle with the jihadis only after the jihadis had settled with Assad. The good would ultimately outweigh the bad. This kind of self-centered moral calculus would not have mattered had Gambill only spoken for himself. But he didn't. Rather, he was expressing the viewpoint of Official Washington in general, which is why the ultra-respectable FP ran his piece in the first place.The Islamists were something America could employ to their advantage and then throw away like a squeezed lemon. A few Syrians would suffer, but America would win, and that's all that counts.
The parallels with the DIA are striking. "The west, gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition," the intelligence report declared, even though "the Salafist[s], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [i.e. Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency."
Where Gambill predicted that "Assad and his minions will likely retreat to northwestern Syria," the DIA speculated that the jihadis might establish "a declared or undeclared Salafist principality" at the other end of the country near cities like Hasaka and Der Zor (also known as Deir ez-Zor).
Where the FP said that the ultimate aim was to roll back Iranian influence and undermine Shi'ite rule, the DIA said that a Salafist principality "is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)."
Bottle up the Shi'ites in northwestern Syria, in other words, while encouraging Sunni extremists to establish a base in the east so as to put pressure on Shi'ite-influenced Iraq and Shi'ite-ruled Iran.
As Gambill put it: "Whatever misfortunes Sunni Islamists may visit upon the Syrian people, any government they form will be strategically preferable to the Assad regime, for three reasons: A new government in Damascus will find continuing the alliance with Tehran unthinkable, it won't have to distract Syrians from its minority status with foreign policy adventurism like the ancien régime, and it will be flush with petrodollars from Arab Gulf states (relatively) friendly to Washington."
With the Saudis footing the bill, the U.S. would exercise untrammeled sway.
Disastrous Thinking
Has a forecast that ever gone more spectacularly wrong? Syria's Baathist government is hardly blameless in this affair. But thanks largely to the U.S.-backed sectarian offensive, 400,000 Syrians or more have died since Gambill's article appeared, with another 6.1 million displaced and an estimated 4.8 million fleeing abroad.
U.S.-backed Syrian "moderate" rebels smile as they prepare to behead a 12-year-old boy (left), whose severed head is held aloft triumphantly in a later part of the video. [Screenshot from the YouTube video] War-time destruction totals around $250 billion , according to U.N. estimates, a staggering sum for a country of 18.8 million people where per-capita income prior to the outbreak of violence was under $3,000. From Syria, the specter of sectarian violence has spread across Asia and Africa and into Europe and North America as well. Political leaders throughout the advanced industrial world are still struggling to contain the populist fury that the Middle East refugee crisis, the result of U.S.-instituted regime change, helped set off.
So instead of advancing U.S. policy goals, Gambill helped do the opposite. The Middle East is more explosive than ever while U.S. influence has fallen to sub-basement levels. Iranian influence now extends from the Arabian Sea to the Mediterranean, while the country that now seems to be wobbling out of control is Saudi Arabia where Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman is lurching from one self-induced crisis to another. The country that Gambill counted on to shore up the status quo turns out to be undermining it.
It's not easy to screw things up so badly, but somehow Washington's bloated foreign-policy establishment has done it. Since helping to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, Gambill has moved on to a post at the rightwing Middle East Forum where Daniel Pipes, the group's founder and chief, now inveighs against the same Sunni ethnic cleansing that his employee defended or at least apologized for.
The forum is particularly well known for its Campus Watch program, which targets academic critics of Israel, Islamists, and – despite Gambill's kind words about "suicide bombings and roadside bombs" – anyone it considers the least bit apologetic about Islamic terrorism.
Double your standard, double the fun. Terrorism, it seems, is only terrorism when others do it to the U.S., not when the U.S. does it to others.
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).
Babyl-on , December 8, 2017 at 5:26 pm
john wilson , December 9, 2017 at 6:31 amI do not believe than anyone in the civil or military command ever believed that arming the jihadists would bring any sort of stability or peace to the region. I do not believe that peace was ever an interest of the US until it has once again gained hegemonic control of central Asia. This is a fight to retain US global domination – causalities do not matter. The US and its partners or co-rulers of the Empire the Saud family and the Zionist oligarchy will slaughter with impunity until someone stops them or their own corruption defeats them.
The Empire can not exist without relentless ongoing slaughter it has been at it every day now for 73 years. It worked for them all that time but that time has run out. China has already set the date for when its currency will become fully freely exchanged, less than 5 years. When that happens the world will return to the gold standard + Bitcoin possibly and US dollar hegemony will end. After that the trillion dollar a year military and the 20 trillion debt take on a different meaning. Before that slaughter non-stop will continue.
Jerald Davidson , December 9, 2017 at 11:53 amReally, Baby-lon, your first short paragraph sums this piece by Lazare perfectly and makes the rest of his blog seem rather pointless. Even the most stupid person on earth couldn't think that the US was using murdering, butchering head choppers in a bid to bring peace and stability to the middle East. The Neocons and the other criminals that infest Washington don't want peace at any price because its bad for business.
BannanaBoat , December 9, 2017 at 4:31 pmBabyl-on and John Wilson: you have nailed it. The last thing the US (gov't.) wants is peace. War is big business; casualties are of no concern (3 million Koreans died in the Korean War; 3 million Vietnamese in that war; 100's of thousands in Iraq [including Clinton's sanctions] and Afghanistan). The US has used jihadi proxies since the mujahedeen in 1980's Afghanistan and Contras in Nicaragua. To the US (gov't.), a Salafist dictatorship (such as Saudi Arabia) is highly preferable to a secular, nationalist ruler (such as Egypt's Nasser, Libya's Gaddafi, Syria's Assad).
So the cover story of the jjihadi's has changed – first they are freedom fighters, then terrorists. What does not change is that in either case they are pawns of the US (gov't.) goal of hegemony.
(Incidentally, Drew Hunkins must be responding to a different article.)Richard , December 9, 2017 at 5:24 pmExactly Baby right on, Either USA strategists are extremely ignorant or they are attempting to create chaos, probably both. Perhaps not continuously but surely frequently the USA has promoted war prior to the last 73 years. Native Genocide , Mexican Wars, Spanish War, WWI ( USA banker repayment war)
Sam F , December 10, 2017 at 8:50 amExactly Babylon! Looks like consortiumnews is turning into another propaganda rag. Assad was allied with Russia and Iran – that's why the U.S. wanted him removed. Israel said that they would preferred ISIS in power over Assad. The U.S. would have happily wiped out 90% of the population using its terrorist proxies if it thought it could have got what it wanted.
Richard , December 10, 2017 at 10:27 amCN tends to make moderate statements so as to communicate with those most in need of them. One must start with the understandings of the audience and show them that the evidence leads further.
Drew Hunkins , December 8, 2017 at 5:31 pmSam F, no, it's a DELIBERATE lie in support of U.S. foreign policy. The guy wrote: "the NAIVE belief that jihadist proxies could be used to TRANSFORM THE REGION FOR THE BETTER." It could have been written as: "the stated justification by the president that he wanted to transform the region for the better, even though there are often ulterior motives."
It's the same GROTESQUE caricature of these wars that the mainstream media always presents: that the U.S. is on the side of good, and fights for good, even though every war INVARIABLY ends up in a bloodbath, with no one caring how many civilians have died, what state the country is left in, that civilian infrastructure and civilians were targeted, let alone whether war could have been prevented. For example, in 1991, shortly after the first Gulf War, Iraqis rose up against their regime, but George H. Bush allowed Saddam to fly his military helicopters (permission was needed due to the no-fly zones), and quell the rebellion in blood – tens of thousands were butchered! Bush said that when he told Iraqis to rebel, he meant the military generals, NOT the Iraqi people themselves. In other words, the U.S. wanted Saddam gone, but the same regime in place. The U.S. never cared about the people!
Either Robert Parry or the author wrote that introduction. I suspect Mr Parry – he always portrays the president as having a heart of gold, but, always, sadly, misinformed; being a professional journalist, he knows full well that people often only read the start and end of an article.
Abe , December 8, 2017 at 7:57 pmWhat we have occurring right now in the United States is a rare divergence of interests within our ruling class. The elites are currently made up of Zionist-militarists. What we're now witnessing is a rare conflict between the two factions. This particular internecine battle has reared its head in the past, the Dubai armaments deal comes to mind off the top of my head.
Trump started the Jerusalem imbroglio because he's concerned about Mueller's witch hunt.
The military-industrial-complex sicced Mueller on Trump because they despise his overtures towards rapprochement with the Kremlin. The military-industrial-complex MUST have a villain to justify the gigantic defense [sic] spending which permeates the entire U.S. politico-economic system. Putin and Russia were always the preferred demon because they easily fit the bill in the minds of an easily brainwashed American public. Of course saber rattling towards Moscow puts the world on the brink of nuclear war, but no matter, the careerism and fat contracts are all that matter to the MIC. Trump's rhetoric about making peace with the Kremlin has always mortified the MIC.
Since Trump's concerned about 1.) Mueller's witch hunt (he definitely should be deeply concerned, this is an out of control prosecutor on mission creep), and 2.) the almost total negative coverage the press has given him over the last two years, he's made a deal with the Zionist Power Configuration; Trump, effectively saying to them: "I'll give you Jerusalem, you use your immense influence in the American mass media to tamp down the relentlessly hostile coverage toward me, and perhaps smear Mueller's witch hunt a bit ".
This is a rare instance of our elites battling it out behind the scenes, both groups being reprehensible power hungry greed heads and sociopaths, it's hard to tell how this will end.
How this all eventually plays out is anyone's guess indeed. Let's just make sure it doesn't end with mushroom clouds over Tehran, Saint Petersburg, Paris, Chicago, London, NYC, Washington and Berlin.
Drew Hunkins , December 8, 2017 at 8:10 pmTrump's purported deviation from foreign policy orthodoxy regarding both Russia and Israel was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning. As Russia-gate fiction is progressively deconstructed, the Israel-gate reality becomes ever more despicably obvious.
The shamelessly Israel-pandering Trump received the "Liberty Award" for his contributions to US-Israel relations at a 3 February 2015 gala hosted by The Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper, covering American and international Jewish and Israel-related news.
"We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." VIDEO minutes 2:15-8:06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwBwBw7R-U
After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015.
Trump's purported break with GOP orthodoxy, questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.
Cheap theatrics notwithstanding, the Netanyahu regime in Israel has "1000 percent" support from the Trump regime.
Abe , December 8, 2017 at 10:59 pmIf Trump were totally and completely subservient to Netanyahu he would have bombed Damascus to remove Assad and would have bombed Tehran to obliterate Iran. Of course thus far he has done neither. Don't get me wrong, Trump is essentially part and parcel of the Zionist cabal, but I don't quite think he's 1,000% under their thumb (not yet?).
I don't think the Zionist Power Configuration concocted Trump's policy of relative peace with the Kremlin. Yes, the ZPC is extremely powerful in America, but Trump's position of detente with Moscow seemed to be genuine. He caught way too much heat from the mass media for it to be a stunt, it's almost torpedoed his presidency, and may eventually do just that. It was actually one of the very few things Trump got right; peace with Russia, cordial relations with the Kremlin are a no-brainer. A no-brainer to everyone but the military-industrial-complex.
WC , December 9, 2017 at 3:44 pmRussian. Missiles. Lets be clear: The military-industrial-complex wants plenty of low intensity conflict to fuel ever more fabulous weapons sales, not a really hot war where all those pretty expensive toys are falling out of the sky in droves.
Whether it was "bird strike" or something more technological that recently grounded the "mighty" Israeli F-35I, it's clear that America isn't eager to have those "Inherent Resolve" jets, so busily not bombing ISIS, painted with Russian SAM radar.
Russia made it clear that Trump's Tomahawk Tweet in April 2017 was not only under totally false pretenses. It had posed a threat to Russian troops and Moscow took extra measures to protect them.
Russian deployment of the advanced S-400 system on the Syrian coast in Latakia also impacts Israel's regional air superiority. The S-400 can track and shoot down targets some 400 kilometers (250 miles) away. That range encompasses half of Israel's airspace, including Ben Gurion International Airport. In addition to surface-to-air missiles installations, Russian aircraft in Syria are equipped with air-to-air missiles. Those weapons are part of an calculus of Israeli aggression in the region.
Of course, there's much more to say about this subject.
john wilson , December 9, 2017 at 6:34 amHere's a good one from Hedges (for what little good it will do). https://www.truthdig.com/articles/zero-hour-palestine/
Drew Hunkins , December 9, 2017 at 1:34 pmSurely, Drew, even the brain washed sheep otherwise known as the American public can't seriously believe that their government armed head choppers in a bid to bring peace to the region, can they?
mike k , December 8, 2017 at 5:34 pmYup Mr. Wilson. It's too much cognitive dissonance for them to process. After all, we're the exceptional nation, the beacon on the hill, the country that ONLY intervenes abroad when there is a 'right to protect!' or it's a 'humanitarian intervention.' As Ken Burns would say: Washington only acts "with good intentions. They're just sometimes misplaced." That's all. The biggest global empire the world has ever seen is completely out of the picture.
john wilson , December 9, 2017 at 6:36 amWhen evil people with evil intentions set out to do something in the world, the result is evil. Like Libya, or Iraq, or Syria. Why do I call these people who killed millions for their own selfish greed for power evil? If you have to ask that, then you just don't understand what evil is – and you have a lot of company, because many people believe that evil does not even exist! Such sheeple become the perfect victims of the evil ones, who are destroying our world.
mike k , December 9, 2017 at 5:41 pmCorrection, Mike. The public do believe that evil exists but they sincerely think that Putin and Russia are the evil ones'
Mild - ly Facetious , December 8, 2017 at 6:22 pmOne of the ways to avoid recognizing evil is to ascribe it to inappropriate, incorrect sources usually as a result of believing misleading propaganda. Another common maneuver is to deny evil's presence in oneself, and believe it is always "out there". Or one can feel that "evil" is an outmoded religious concept that is only used to hit at those one does not like.
Abe , December 8, 2017 at 6:24 pmOh Jerusalem: Requiem for the two-state solution (Gas masks required)
https://electronicintifada.net/content/oh-jerusalem-requiem-two-state-solution/22521
Abe , December 8, 2017 at 6:27 pmOn 24 October 2017, the Intercept released an NSA document unearthed from leaked intelligence files provided by Edward Snowden which reveals that terrorist militants in Syria were under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the war which has now claimed half a million lives.
https://theintercept.com/2017/10/24/syria-rebels-nsa-saudi-prince-assad/
Marked "Top Secret" the NSA memo focuses on events that unfolded outside Damascus in March of 2013.
The US intelligence memo is evidence of internal US government confirmation of the direct role that both the Saudi and US governments played in fueling attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, as well as military targets in pursuit of "regime change" in Syria.
Israel's support for terrorist forces in Syria is well established. The Israelis and Saudis coordinate their activities.
Abe , December 9, 2017 at 12:26 pmAn August 2012 DIA report (written when the U.S. was monitoring weapons flows from Libya to Syria), said that the opposition in Syria was driven by al Qaeda and other extremist groups: "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria." The "deterioration of the situation" was predicted to have "dire consequences" for Iraq, which included the "grave danger" of a terrorist "Islamic state". Some of the "dire consequences" are blacked out but the DIA warned one such consequence would be the "renewing facilitation of terrorist elements from all over the Arab world entering into Iraqi Arena."
The heavily redacted DIA memo specifically mentions "the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)."
To clarify just who these "supporting powers" were, mentioned in the document who sought the creation of a "Salafist principality," the DIA memo explained: "The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime."
The DIA memo clearly indicates when it was decided to transform US, Saudi, and Turkish-backed Al Qaeda affiliates into ISIS: the "Salafist" (Islamic) "principality" (State). NATO member state Turkey has been directly supporting terrorism in Syria, and specifically, supporting ISIS. In 2014, Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle's reported "'IS' supply channels through Turkey." DW exposed fleets of hundreds of trucks a day, passing unchallenged through Turkey's border crossings with Syria, clearly bound for the defacto ISIS capital of Raqqa. Starting in September 2015, Russian airpower in Syria successfully interdicted ISIS supply lines.
The usual suspects in Western media launched a relentless propaganda campaign against Russian support for Syria. The Atlantic Council's Bellingcat disinformation operation started working overtime.
The propaganda effort culminated in the 4 April 2017 Khan Shaykhun false flag chemical incident in Idlib. Bellingcat's Eliot Higgins and Dan Kaszeta have been paraded by "First Draft" coalition media "partners" in a vigorous effort to somehow implicate the Russians.
Abe , December 9, 2017 at 12:44 pmIn a January 2016 interview on Al Jazeera, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency Michael Flynn admitted that he "paid very close attention" to the August 2012 DIA report predicting the rise of a "declared or undeclared Salafist Principality" in Syria. Flynn even asserts that the White House's sponsoring of terrorists (that would emerge as Al Nusra and ISIS) against the Syrian regime was "a willful decision."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Y274U7QIs
Flynn was interviewed by British journalist Mehdi Hasan for Al Jazeera's Head to Head program. Flynn made it clear that the policies that led to the "the rise of the Islamic State, the rise of terrorism" were not merely the result of ignorance or looking the other way, but the result of conscious decision making:
Hasan: "You are basically saying that even in government at the time you knew these groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it, but who wasn't listening?"
Flynn: "I think the administration."
Hasan: "So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?"
Flynn: "I don't know that they turned a blind eye, I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision."
Hasan: "A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?"
Flynn: "It was a willful decision to do what they're doing."
Holding up a paper copy of the 2012 DIA report declassified through FOIA, Hasan read aloud key passages such as, "there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria, and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime."
Rather than downplay the importance of the document and these startling passages, as did the State Department soon after its release, Flynn did the opposite: he confirmed that while acting DIA chief he "paid very close attention" to this report in particular and later added that "the intelligence was very clear."
Lt. Gen. Flynn, speaking safely from retirement, is the highest ranking intelligence official to go on record saying the United States and other state sponsors of rebels in Syria knowingly gave political backing and shipped weapons to Al-Qaeda in order to put pressure on the Syrian regime:
Hasan: "In 2012 the U.S. was helping coordinate arms transfers to those same groups [Salafists, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda in Iraq], why did you not stop that if you're worried about the rise of quote-unquote Islamic extremists?"
Flynn: "I hate to say it's not my job but that my job was to was to to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was as good as it could be."
Flynn unambiguously confirmed that the 2012 DIA document served as source material in his own discussions over Syria policy with the White House. Flynn served as Director of Intelligence for Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) during a time when its prime global mission was dismantling Al-Qaeda.
Flynn's admission that the White House was in fact arming and bolstering Al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria is especially shocking given his stature. The Pentagon's former highest ranking intelligence officer in charge of the hunt for Osama bin Laden confessed that the United States directly aided the Al Qaeda terrorist legions of Ayman al-Zawahiri beginning in at least 2012 in Syria.
Abe , December 9, 2017 at 2:11 pmMehdi Hasan goes Head to Head with Michael Flynn, former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency
Full Transcript: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/headtohead/2016/01/transcript-michael-flynn-160104174144334.html
Abe , December 9, 2017 at 3:08 pm"Flynn would later tell the New York Times that this 2012 intelligence report in particular was seen at the White House where it was 'disregarded' because it 'didn't meet the narrative' on the war in Syria. He would further confirm to investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that Defense Department (DoD) officials and DIA intelligence in particular, were loudly warning the administration that jihadists were leading the opposition in Syria -- warnings which were met with 'enormous pushback.' Instead of walking back his Al Jazeera comments, General Flynn explained to Hersh that 'If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic.' Hersh's investigative report exposed a kind of intelligence schism between the Pentagon and CIA concerning the covert program in Syria.
"In a personal exchange on his blog Sic Semper Tyrannis, legendary DoD intelligence officer and former presidential briefer Pat Lang explained [ ] that the DIA memo was used as a 'warning shot across the [administration's] bow.' Lang has elsewhere stated that DIA Director Flynn had 'tried to persuade people in the Obama Administration not to provide assistance to the Nusra group.' It must be remembered that in 2012 what would eventually emerge as distinct 'ISIS' and 'Nusra' (AQ in Syria) groups was at that time a singular entity desiring a unified 'Islamic State.' The nascent ISIS organization (referenced in the memo as 'ISI' or Islamic State in Iraq) was still one among many insurgent groups fighting to topple Assad.
"In fact, only one year after the DIA memo was produced (dated August 12, 2012) a coalition of rebels fighting under the US-backed Revolutionary Military Council of Aleppo were busy celebrating their most strategic victory to date, which served to open an opposition corridor in Northern Syria. The seizure of the Syrian government's Menagh Airbase in August 2013 was only accomplished with the military prowess of fighters identifying themselves in front of cameras and to reporters on the ground as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
"Public embarrassment came for Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford who reluctantly confirmed that in fact, yes, the US-funded and supplied FSA commander on the ground had personally led ISIS and Nusra fighters in the attack (Ford himself was previously filmed alongside the commander). This after the New York Times publicized unambiguous video proof of the fact. Even the future high commander of Islamic State's military operations, Omar al-Shishani, himself played a leading role in the US sponsored FSA operation."
Obama and the DIA 'Islamic State' Memo: What Trump Gets Right
By Brad Hoff
https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2016/07/01/obama-and-the-dia-islamic-state-memo-what-trump-gets-right/BobH, December 8, 2017 at 7:13 pm"one first needs to understand what has happened in Syria and other Middle Eastern countries in recent years. The original plan of the US and Saudi Arabia (behind whom stood an invisible Israel) was the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad and his replacement with Islamic fundamentalists or takfiris (Daesh, al-Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra).
"The plan involved the following steps:
- sweep away a strong secular Arab state with a political culture, armed forces and security services;
- generate total chaos and horror in Syria that would justify the creation of Israel's 'security zone', not only in Golan Heights, but also further north;
- start a civil war in Lebanon and incite takfiri violence against Hezbollah, leading to them both bleeding to death and then create a "security zone", this time in Lebanon;
- prevent the creation of a "Shiite axis" of Iran/Iraq/Syria/Lebanon;
- continue the division of Syria along ethnic and religious lines, establish an independent Kurdistan and then to use them against Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
- give Israel the opportunity to become the unquestioned major player in the region and force Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and everyone else to apply for permission from Israel in order to implement any oil and gas projects;
- gradually isolate, threaten, undermine and ultimately attack Iran with a wide regional coalition, removing all Shiite centers of power in the middle East.
"It was an ambitious plan, and the Israelis were completely convinced that the United States would provide all the necessary resources to see it through. But the Syrian government has survived thanks to military intervention by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Daesh is almost defeated and Iran and Hezbollah are so firmly entrenched in Syria that it has driven the Israelis into a state of fear bordering on panic. Lebanon remains stable, and even the recent attempt by the Saudis to abduct Prime Minister Saad Hariri failed.
"As a result, Saudi Arabia and Israel have developed a new plan: force the US to attack Iran. To this end, the 'axis of good"' (USA-Israel-Saudi Arabia) was created, although this is nothing new. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab States in the Persian Gulf have in the past spoken in favor of intervention in Syria. It is well known that the Saudis invaded Bahrain, are occupying it de facto, and are now at war in Yemen.
"The Israelis will participate in any plan that will finally split the Sunnis and Shiites, turning the region into rubble. It was not by chance that, having failed in Lebanon, they are now trying to do the same in Yemen after the murder of Ali Abdullah Saleh.
"For the Saudis and Israelis, the problem lies in the fact that they have rather weak armed forces; expensive and high-tech, but when it comes to full-scale hostilities, especially against a really strong opponent such as the Iranians or Hezbollah, the 'Israel/Wahhabis' have no chance and they know it, even if they do not admit it. So, one simply needs to think up some kind of plan to force the Shiites to pay a high price.
"So they developed a new plan. Firstly, the goal is now not the defeat of Hezbollah or Iran. For all their rhetoric, the Israelis know that neither they nor especially the Saudis are able to seriously threaten Iran or even Hezbollah. Their plan is much more basic: initiate a serious conflict and then force the US to intervene. Only today, the armed forces of the United States have no way of winning a war with Iran, and this may be a problem. The US military knows this and they are doing everything to tell the neo-cons 'sorry, we just can't.' This is the only reason why a US attack on Iran has not already taken place. From the Israeli point of view this is totally unacceptable and the solution is simple: just force the US to participate in a war they do not really need. As for the Iranians, the Israeli goal of provoking an attack on Iran by the US is not to defeat Iran, but just to bring about destruction – a lot of destruction [ ]
"You would need to be crazy to attack Iran. The problem, however, is that the Saudis and the Israelis are close to this state. And they have proved it many times. So it just remains to hope that Israel and the KSA are 'crazy', but 'not that crazy'."
The Likelihood of War with Iran By Petr Lvov https://journal-neo.org/2017/12/09/the-likelihood-of-war-with-iran/
Linda Wood , December 8, 2017 at 10:24 pmThe article raises a very serious charge. Up till now it appeared that supplying weapons to Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria was just another example of Pentagon incompetence but the suggestion here is that it was a concerted policy and it's hard to believe that there was no one in the Pentagon that was privy to that policy who wouldn't raise an objection.
That it conformed with Israeli, Saudi and CIA designs is not surprising, but that there was no dissension within the Pentagon is appalling (or that Obama didn't raise objections). Clark's comment should put him on the hot seat for a congressional investigation but, of course, there is no one in congress to run with it. The policy is so manifestly evil that it seems to dwarf even the reckless ignorance of preceding "interventions".
BobH , December 8, 2017 at 10:55 pmThere WAS dissension within the Pentagon, not only about being in a coalition with the Gulf States and Turkey in support of terrorist forces, but about allowing ISIS to invade Ramadi, which CENTCOM exposed by making public that US forces watched it happen and did nothing. In addition, CENTCOM and SOCOM publicly opposed switching sides in Yemen.
A senior commander at Central Command (CENTCOM), speaking on condition of anonymity, scoffed at that argument. "The reason the Saudis didn't inform us of their plans," he said, "is because they knew we would have told them exactly what we think -- that it was a bad idea.
Military sources said that a number of regional special forces officers and officers at U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) argued strenuously against supporting the Saudi-led intervention because the target of the intervention, the Shia Houthi movement -- which has taken over much of Yemen and which Riyadh accuses of being a proxy for Tehran -- has been an effective counter to Al-Qaeda.
The DIA report released by Gen. Flynn in 2012 predicted the Islamic State with alarm. That is why Flynn was fired as Director of DIA. He objected to the insane policy of supporting the CIA/Saudi madness and saw it as not only counter-productive but disastrous. His comments to AlJazeera in 2016 reinforced this position. Gen Flynn's faction of the American military has been consistent in its opposition to CIA support of terrorist forces.
Sam F , December 10, 2017 at 8:57 amThanks, I never read anything about it in the MSM (perhaps Aljazeera was an exception?). However, this doesn't explain Gen. Flynn's tight relationship with Turkey's Erdogan who clearly backed the Al Qaeda affiliated rebels to the point of shooting down a Russian jet over Syria.
Linda Wood , December 8, 2017 at 10:28 pmThe fighter shoot-down incident was before Erdogan's reversals in Syria policy.
j. D. D. , December 9, 2017 at 8:33 amI see Gen. Flynn as a whistleblower. The 2012 report he circulated saw the rise of the Salafist Islamic state with alarm.
B. THE SALAFIST, THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD, AND AQI ARE THE MAJOR FORCES DRIVING THE INSURGENCY IN SYRIA.
C. THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY SUPPORT THE OPPOSITION; WHILE RUSSIA, CHINA, AND IRAN SUPPORT THE REGIME.
C. IF THE SITUATION UNRAVELS THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME, WHICH IS CONSIDERED THE STRATEGIC DEPTH OF THE SHIA EXPANSION (IRAQ AND IRAN).
D. THE DETERIORATION OF THE SITUATION HAS DIRE CONSEQUENCES ON THE IRAQI SITUATION AND ARE AS FOLLOWS:
–1. THIS CREATES THE IDEAL ATMOSPHERE FOR AQI TO RETURN TO ITS OLD POCKETS IN MOSUL AND RAMADI, AND WILL PROVIDE A RENEWED MOMENTUM UNDER THE PRESUMPTION OF UNIFYING THE JIHAD AMONG SUNNI IRAQ AND SYRIA ISI COULD ALSO DECLARE AN ISLAMIC STATE THROUGH ITS UNION WITH OTHER TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS IN IRAQ AND SYRIA, WHICH WILL CREATE GRAVE DANGER IN REGARDS TO UNIFYING IRAQ AND THE PROTECTION OF ITS TERRITORY
https://geopolitics.co/2015/12/22/dempseys-pentagon-aided-assad-with-military-intelligence-hersh/
London Review of Books Vol. 38 No. 1 · 7 January 2016
Military to Military: US intelligence sharing in the Syrian war
Seymour M. HershLieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, confirmed that his agency had sent a constant stream of classified warnings to the civilian leadership about the dire consequences of toppling Assad. The jihadists, he said, were in control of the opposition. Turkey wasn't doing enough to stop the smuggling of foreign fighters and weapons across the border. 'If the American public saw the intelligence we were producing daily, at the most sensitive level, they would go ballistic,' Flynn told me. 'We understood Isis's long-term strategy and its campaign plans, and we also discussed the fact that Turkey was looking the other way when it came to the growth of the Islamic State inside Syria.' The DIA's reporting, he said, 'got enormous pushback' from the Obama administration. 'I felt that they did not want to hear the truth.'
Abbybwood , December 9, 2017 at 11:24 pmThank you. Gen Flynn also urged coordination with Russia against ISIS, so it doesn't take much to see why he was targeted. Ironically, the MSM is now going bananas over his support for nuclear power in the region, which he had tied to desalination of sea water, toward alleviating that crucial source of conflict in the area.
jaycee , December 8, 2017 at 7:19 pmI believe Wesley Clark told Amy Goodman that he was handed the classified memo regarding the U.S. overthrowing seven countries in five years starting with Iraq and ending with Iran, in 2001, not 2006. He said it was right after 9/11 when he visited the Pentagon and Joint Chief of Staff's office and was handed the memo.
turk151 , December 9, 2017 at 10:03 pmThe use of Islamist proxy warriors to help achieve American geo-political ends goes back to at least 1979, including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Libya, and Syria. One of the better books on 9/11 is Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed's "The War On Truth: 9/11, Disinformation, and the Anatomy of Terrorism". The first section of that book – "The Geopolitics of Terrorism" – covers, across 150 well-sourced pages, the history and background of this involvement. It is highly recommended for anyone who wishes to be better informed on this topic.
One disturbing common feature across the years have been US sponsored airlifts of Islamist fighters facing defeat, as seen in Afghanistan in late 2001 and just recently in eastern Syria. In 2001, some of those fighters were relocated to North Africa, specifically Mali – the roots of the Islamist insurgency which has destabilized that country over the past few years. Where exactly the ISIS rebels assisted some weeks ago were relocated is yet unknown.
j. D. D. , December 8, 2017 at 7:57 pmJaycee, actually you have to go back much further than that to WW2. Hitler used the marginalized Turkic people in Russia and turned them into effective fighters to create internal factions within the Soviet Union. After Hitler lost and the Cold War began, the US, who had no understanding of the Soviets at the time radicalized and empowered Islamist including the Muslim Brotherhood to weaponize Islam against the Soviet Union.
Hence the birth of the Mujaheddin and Bin Laden, the rest is history.
David G , December 9, 2017 at 7:25 amThe article does not support the sub-headline. There is no evidence provided, nor is there any evidence to be found, that Washington's policy in the region was motivated by anything other than geopolitical objectives.
Anon , December 9, 2017 at 9:14 amI think that phrasing may point to the hand of editor Robert Parry. The incredible value of CN notwithstanding, Parry in his own pieces (erroneously in my eyes) maintains a belief that Obama somehow meant well. Hence the imputation of some "naïve" but ultimately benevolent motive on the part of the U.S. genocidaires, as the whole Syria catastrophe got going on Obama's watch.
Skip Scott , December 9, 2017 at 9:45 amThe imputation of naivete works to avoid accusation of a specific strategy without sufficient evidence.
Stephen , December 9, 2017 at 2:49 pmAlthough I am no fan of Obama, and most especially the continuation of the warmongering for his 8 years, he did balk at the "Red line" when he found out he was being set up, and it wasn't Assad who used chemical weapons. I don't think he "meant well" so much as he knew the exact length of his leash. His bragging about going against "The Washington playbook" was of course laughable; just as his whole hopey/changey thing was laughable with Citigroup picking his cabinet.
Lois Gagnon , December 8, 2017 at 8:41 pmOff topic but you can listen to some of Obama's banking handiwork here: https://sputniknews.com/radio_loud_and_clear/201712091059844562-looming-government-shutdown-will-democrats-fight-trumps-pro-rich-plan/ It starts at about minute 28:14. It explains the whole reaction by Obama and Holder to the banking fiasco in my mind. Sorry but I had to get it from the evil Rooski radio program.
Stephen J. , December 8, 2017 at 8:42 pmAll these western imperial geostrategic planners are certifiably insane and have no business anywhere near the levers of government policy. They are the number one enemy of humanity. If we don't find a way to remove them from power, they may actually succeed in destroying life on Earth.
MarkU , December 8, 2017 at 10:00 pmThere is a volume of evidence that the war criminals in our midst were arming and training "jihadists." See link below. http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/10/the-evidence-of-planning-of-wars.html
Linda Wood , December 8, 2017 at 10:37 pm"Official Washington helped unleash hell on Syria and across the Mideast behind the naïve belief that jihadist proxies could be used to transform the region for the better, explains Daniel Lazare." What a load of old rubbish, naïve belief indeed. it is difficult to believe that anyone could write this stuff with a straight face.
Zachary Smith , December 8, 2017 at 11:37 pmIncompetence and stupidity are their only defense because if anyone acknowledged that trillions of dollars have been made by the usual suspects committing these crimes, the industrialists of war would face a justice symbolized by Nuremberg.
Zachary Smith , December 8, 2017 at 11:37 pmThat Gary Gambill character "outed" himself as a Zionist on September 4 of this year. He appears to have mastered the propaganda associated with the breed. At the link see if you can find any mention of the murders, thefts, ethnic cleansing, or apartheid of his adopted nation. Blaming the victim may be this fellow's specialty. Sample:
The well-intentioned flocked in droves to the belief that Israeli- Palestinian peace was achievable provided Israel made the requisite concessions, and that this would liberate the Arab-Islamic world from a host of other problems allegedly arising from it: bloated military budgets, intolerance of dissent, Islamic extremism, you name it.
Why tackle each of these problems head on when they can be alleviated all at once when Israel is brought to heel? Twenty years later, the Middle East is suffering the consequences of this conspiracy of silence.
Gerry , December 9, 2017 at 4:51 amTheo , December 9, 2017 at 6:35 amThe American groupthink rarely allows propaganda and disinformation disturb: endless wars and endless lies and criminality, have not disturbed this mindset. It is clever to manipulate people to think in a way opposite of truth so consistently. All the atrocities by the US have been surrounded by media propaganda and mastery of groupthink techniques go down well. Mention something unusual or real news and you might get heavily criticized for daring to think outside the box and doubt what are (supposedly) "religious truths". Tell a lie long enough and it becomes the truth.
It takes courage to go against the flow of course and one can only hope that the Americans are what they think they are: courageous and strong enough to hear their cherished truths smashed, allow the scales before their eyes to fall and practise free speech and free thought.
Josh Stern , December 9, 2017 at 6:49 amThanks for this article and many others on this site.In Europe and in Germany you hardly hear,read or see any of these facts and their connections.It seems to be only of marginal interest.
triekc , December 9, 2017 at 8:27 amThe CIA was a key force behind the creation of both al Qaeda and ISIS. Most major incidents of "Islamic Terrorism" have some kind of CIA backing behind them. See this large collection of links for compiled evidence: http://www.pearltrees.com/joshstern/government-supporting/id18814292
Joe Tedesky , December 9, 2017 at 11:27 amThis journalist and other journalists writing on some of my favorite Russian propaganda news websites, have reported the US empire routinely makes "deals with the devil", the enemy of my enemy is my friend, if doing so furthers their goal of perpetual war and global hegemony. Yet, inexplicably, these journalists buy the US empire's 911 story without question, in the face of many unanswered questions.
Beginning in the 1990's, neocons who would become W's cabinet, wrote detailed plans of military regime change in Middle East, but stating they needed a "strong external shock to the United States -- a latter-day 'Pearl Harbor", to get US sheeple to support increased militarism and global war. Few months after W took office, and had appointed those war mongering neocons to positions of power, Bin Laden (CIA staffer) and a handful of his men, all from close allied countries to the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, delivered the 2nd Pearl Harbor on 911. What a timely coincidence! We accept the US Empire provides weapons and military support to the same enemy, and worse, who attacked us on 911, but one is labeled a "conspiracy nut" if they believe that same US Empire would orchestrate 911 to justify their long planned global war. One thing about being a "conspiracy nut", if you live long enough, often you will see your beliefs vindicated
Christene Bartels , December 9, 2017 at 8:53 amYou commented on what I was thinking, and that was, 'remember when al Queda was our enemy on 911'? So now that bin Laden is dead, and his al Queda now fights on our side, shouldn't the war be over? And, just for the record who did attack us on 911?
So many questions, and so much left unanswered, but don't worry America may run out of money for domestic vital needs but the U.S. always has the money to go fight another war. It's a culture thing, and if you ain't into it then you just don't pay no attention to it. In fact if your life is better off from all of these U.S. led invasions, then your probably not posting any comments here, either.
Knowing the Pentagon mentality they probably have an 'al Queda combat medal' to pin on the terrorists chest. Sarcasm I know, but seriously is anything not within the realm of believable when it comes to this MIC establishment?
Gregory Herr , December 9, 2017 at 1:00 pmGreat article and spot on as far as the author takes it. But the world is hurtling towards Armageddon so I'd like to back things up about one hundred years and get down to brass tacks.
The fact of the matter is, the M.E. has never been at total peace but it has been nothing but one colossal FUBAR since the Ottoman Empire was defeated after WWI and the Allied Forces got their grubby, greedy mitts on its M.E. territories and all of that luscious black gold. First up was the British Empire and France and then it really went nuclear (literally) in 1946 when Truman and the U.S. joined in the fun and decided to figure out how we could carve out that ancient prime piece of real estate and resurrect Israel. By 1948 ..violà ..there she was.
So now here we sit as the hundred year delusion that we knew what the hell we were doing comes crashing down around us. Seriously, whoever the people have been who thought that a country with the historical perspective of a toddler was going to be able to successfully manage and manipulate a region filled with people who are still tribal in perspective and are still holding grudges and settling scores from five thousand years ago were complete and total arrogant morons. Every single one of them. Up to the present moment.
Which gets me down to those brass tacks I alluded to at the beginning of my comment. Delusional crusades lead by arrogant morons always, always, always end up as ash heaps. So, I would suggest we all prepare for that rapidly approaching conclusion accordingly. For me, that means hitting my knees.
Gregory Herr , December 9, 2017 at 10:07 pmMiddle Eastern people are no more "tribal" or prone to holding grudges than any other people. Middle Eastern people have exhibited and practiced peaceful and tolerant living arrangements within several different contexts over the centuries. Iraq had a fairly thriving middle class and the Syrians are a cultured and educated people.
BASLE , December 9, 2017 at 10:46 amSyrian society is constructed very much within the construct of close family ties and a sense of a Syrian homeland. It is solely the business of the Syrian people to decide whether the socialist Ba'ath government functions according to their own sense of realities and standards. Some of those realities may include aspects of a necessitated national security state (necessitated by CIA and Israeli subterfuge) that prompts shills to immediately characterize the Assad government as "an authoritarian regime" and of course that's all you need to know. Part of what pisses the West off about the Syrians is that they are so competent, and that includes their intelligence and security services. One of the other parts is the socialist example of government functioning in interests of the general population, not selling out to vultures.
It bothers me that Mr. Lazare wrote: "Syria's Baathist government is hardly blameless in this affair." Really? Well the Syrian government can hardly be blamed for the vile strategy of using terrorist mercenaries to take or destroy a people's homeland–killing horrific numbers of fathers, mothers, and children on the way to establish some kind of Wild West control over Damascus that can then be manipulated for the typical elite deviances. What was purposely planned and visited upon the Syrian people has had human consequences that were known and disregarded by the planners. It has been and continues to be a grave crime against our common humanity that should be raised to the roof of objection! People like Gambill should be excoriated for their crass appraisal of human costs .and for their contrived and twisted rationalizations and deceits. President Assad recently gave an interview to teleSUR that is worth a listen. He talks about human costs with understanding for what he is talking about. Gambill doesn't give a damn.
Sam F , December 10, 2017 at 9:08 amFrom the October 1973 Yom Kippur War onward, the United States had no foreign policy in the Middle East other than Israel's. Daniel Lazare should read "A clean break: a new strategy for the Realm".
Herman , December 9, 2017 at 10:47 amYes, Israel is the cut-out or fence for US politicians stealing campaign money from the federal budget. US policy is that of the bribery sources and nothing else. And it believes that to be professional competence. For the majority of amoral opportunists of the US, money=power=virtue and they will attack all who disagree.
Marilyn Vogt-Downey , December 9, 2017 at 11:18 am"Official Washington helped unleash hell on Syria and across the Mideast behind the naïve belief that jihadist proxies could be used to transform the region for the better, explains Daniel Lazare."
Lazare makes the case very well about our amoral foreign policy but I think he errs in saying our aim was to "transform the region for the better." Recent history, going back to Afghanistan shows a very different goal, to defeat our enemies and the enemies of our allies with little concern for the aftermath. Just observing what has happened to the people where we supported extremists is evidence enough.
Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward men. We hope the conscience of our nation is bothered by our behavior but we know that is not true, and we sleep very well, thank you.
Randal Marlin , December 9, 2017 at 11:26 amI am stunned that anyone could be so foolish as to think that the US military machine, US imperialism, does things "naively", bumbling like a helpless giant into wars that destroy entire nations with no end in sight. One need not be a "conspiracy theorist" to understand that the Pentagon does not control the world with an ever-expanding war budget equal to the next 10 countries combined, that it does this just because it is stuck on the wrong path. No! US imperialism develops these "big guns" to use them, to overpower, take over and dominate the world for the sake of profits and protection of the right to exploit for private profit.
There is ample evidence–see the Brookings Institute study among many others–that the Gulf monarchies–flunkies of US imperialism–who "host" dozens of US military bases in the region, some of them central to US war strategy–initiated and nourished and armed and financed the "jihadi armies" in Syria AND Libya AND elsewhere; they did not do this on their own. The US government–the executive committee of the US ruling class–does not naively support the Gulf monarchies because it doesn't know any better! Washington (following British imperialism) organized, established and backed these flunky regimes. They are autocratic, antediluvian regimes, allowing virtually civil rights, with no local proletariat to speak of, no popular base. They are no more than sheriffs for imperialism in that region of the world, along with the Zionist state of Israel, helping imperialism do the really dirty work.
I research this and gathered the evidence to support what I just asserted in a long study printed back in Dec. 2015 in Truthout. Here is the link: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34151-what-is-the-war-on-terror-and-how-to-fight-it
Look at the evidence. Stop the totally foolish assessment that the US government spends all this money on a war machine just to "naively" blunder into wars that level entire nations–and is not taking on destruction of the entire continent of Africa to eliminate any obstacles to its domination.
No! That is foolish and destructive. Unless we look in the face what is going on–the US government since its "secret" intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s, has recruited, trained, armed, funded and relied on jihadi armies to unseat regimes and destabilize and destroy populations and regimes the US government wants to overthrow, and destroy, any that could potentially develop into an alternative model of nationalist, bourgeois industrial development on any level.
Wake up!!! The evidence is there. There is no reason to bumble and bungle along as if we are in the dark.
Zachary Smith , December 9, 2017 at 2:43 pmDaniel Pipes, from what I've read of him, is among those who counsel the U.S. government to use its military power to support the losing side in any civil wars fought within Israel's enemy states, so that the wars will continue, sparing Israel the threat of unified enemy states. What normal human beings consider a humanitarian disaster, repeated in Iraq, Syria and Libya, would be reckoned a success according to this way of thinking.
The thinking would appear to lead to similar treatment of Iran, with even more catastrophic consequences.Behind all this is the thinking that the survival of Israel outweighs anything else in any global ethical calculus. Those who don't accept this moral premise but who believe in supporting the survival of Israel have their work cut out for them. This work would be made easier if the U.S. population saw clearly what was going on, instead of being preoccupied with salacious sexual misconduct stories or other distractions.
Zachary Smith , December 9, 2017 at 2:43 pmA Russian interceptor has been scrambled to stop a rogue US fighter jet from actively interfering with an anti-terrorist operation, the Russian Defense Ministry said. It also accused the US of provoking close encounters with the Russian jets in Syria.
A US F-22 fighter was preventing two Russian Su-25 strike aircraft from bombing an Islamic State (IS, former ISIS) base to the west of the Euphrates November 23, according to the ministry. The ministry's spokesman, Major General Igor Konashenkov described the episode as yet another example of US aircraft attempts to prevent Russian forces from carrying out strikes against Islamic State.
"The F-22 launched decoy flares and used airbrakes while constantly maneuvering [near the Russian strike jets], imitating an air fight," Konashenkov said. He added that the US jet ceased its dangerous maneuvers only after a Russian Su-35S fighter jet joined the two strike planes.
If this story is true, then it illustrates a number of things. First, the US is still providing ISIS air cover. Second, either the F-22 pilot or his commander is dumber than dirt. The F-22 may be a fine airplane, but getting into a contest with an equally fine non-stealth airplane at eyeball distances means throwing away every advantage of the super-expensive stealth.
Pablo Diablo , December 9, 2017 at 2:53 pmAbe , December 9, 2017 at 2:54 pmGotta keep the War Machine well fed and insure Corporate control of markets and taking of resources.
mike k , December 9, 2017 at 6:38 pmIn October 1973, a nuclear armed rogue state almost triggered a global thermonuclear war.
Yom Kippur: Israel's 1973 nuclear alert
By Richard Sale
https://www.upi.com/Yom-Kippur-Israels-1973-nuclear-alert/64941032228992/Israel obtained operational nuclear weapons capability by 1967, with the mass production of nuclear warheads occurring immediately after the Six-Day War. In addition to the Israeli nuclear arsenal, Israel has offensive chemical and biological warfare stockpiles.
Israel, the Middle East's sole nuclear power, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
In 2015, the US-based Institute for Science and International Security estimated that Israel had 115 nuclear warheads. Outside estimates of Israel's nuclear arsenal range up to 400 nuclear weapons.
Israeli nuclear weapons delivery mechanisms include Jericho 3 missiles, with a range of 4,800 km to 6,500 km (though a 2004 source estimated its range at up to 11,500 km), as well as regional coverage from road mobile Jericho 2 IRBMs.
Additionally, Israel is believed to have an offshore nuclear capability using submarine-launched nuclear-capable cruise missiles, which can be launched from the Israeli Navy's Dolphin-class submarines.
The Israeli Air Force has F-15I and F-16I Sufa fighter aircraft are capable of delivering tactical and strategic nuclear weapons at long distances using conformal fuel tanks and supported by their aerial refueling fleet of modified Boeing 707's.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, fled to the United Kingdom and revealed to the media some evidence of Israel's nuclear program and explained the purposes of each building, also revealing a top-secret underground facility directly below the installation.
The Mossad, Israel's secret service, sent a female agent who lured Vanunu to Italy, where he was kidnapped by Mossad agents and smuggled to Israel aboard a freighter. An Israeli court then tried him in secret on charges of treason and espionage, and sentenced him to eighteen years imprisonment.
At the time of Vanunu's kidnapping, The Times reported that Israel had material for approximately 20 hydrogen bombs and 200 fission bombs by 1986. In the spring of 2004, Vanunu was released from prison, and placed under several strict restrictions, such as the denial of a passport, freedom of movement limitations and restrictions on communications with the press. Since his release, he has been rearrested and charged multiple times for violations of the terms of his release.
Safety concerns about this 40-year-old reactor have been reported. In 2004, as a preventive measure, Israeli authorities distributed potassium iodide anti-radiation tablets to thousands of residents living nearby. Local residents have raised concerns regarding serious threats to health from living near the reactor.
According to a lawsuit filed in Be'er Sheva Labor Tribunal, workers at the center were subjected to human experimentation in 1998. According to Julius Malick, the worker who submitted the lawsuit, they were given drinks containing uranium without medical supervision and without obtaining written consent or warning them about risks of side effects.
In April 2016 the U.S. National Security Archive declassified dozens of documents from 1960 to 1970, which detail what American intelligence viewed as Israel's attempts to obfuscate the purpose and details of its nuclear program. The Americans involved in discussions with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and other Israelis believed the country was providing "untruthful cover" about intentions to build nuclear weapons.
Den Lille Abe , December 9, 2017 at 8:54 pmThe machinations of those seeking to gain advantages for themselves by hurting others, are truly appalling. If we fail to name evil for what it is, then we fail as human beings.Those who look the other way as their country engages in an organized reign of terror, are complicit in that enormous crime.
turk151 , December 9, 2017 at 10:20 pmThe path the US has chosen since the end of WWII has been over dead bodies. In the name of "security", bringing "Freedom" and "Democracy" and complete unconstrained greed it has trampled countless nations into piles of rubble. To say it is despised or loathed is an overwhelming understatement. It is almost universally hated in the third world. Rightly. Bringing this monstrosity to a halt is a difficult task, and probably cannot be done militarily without a nuclear war, economically could in the end have the same outcome, then how?
Easy! Ruin its population. This process has started, long ago. The decline in the US of health, general wealth, nutrition, production, education, equality, ethics and morals is already showing as cracks in the fabrics of the US.
A population of incarcerated, obese, low iQ zealot junkies, armed to teeth with guns, in a country with a crumbling infrastructure, full of environmental disasters is 21 st century for most Americans. In all the areas I mentioned the US is going backwards compared to most other countries. So the monster will come down.
Linda Wood , December 10, 2017 at 1:52 amI think you are being a little hard on the incarcerated, obese, low iQ zealot junkies, armed to teeth with guns
I am not sure who is more loathsome the evangelicals who were supporting the Bush / Cheney cabal murderous wars until the bitter end or the liberal intelligentsia careerist cheerleaders for Obama and Hilary's Wars in Iraq and Syria, who also dont give a damn about another Arab country being destroyed and sold into slavery as long as Hillary gets elected. At least with the former group, you can chalk it up to a lack of education.
Barbara van der Wal-Kylstra , December 10, 2017 at 2:46 amThis is possibly the most intelligent and hopeful discussion I have read since 9/11. It says that at least some Americans do see that we have a fascist cell in our government. That is the first step in finding a way to unplug it. Best wishes to all of you who have written here. We will find a way to put war out of business.
Sam F , December 10, 2017 at 9:18 amI think this pattern of using Salafists for regime change started already in Afghanistan, with Brzezinski plotting with Saudi-Arabia and Pakistan to pay and train Osama bin Laden to attack the pro Russia regime and trying to get the USSR involved in it, also trying to blame the USSR for its agression, like they did in Syri"r?
Luutzen , December 10, 2017 at 9:15 amYes, the Brzezinski/Reagan support of fanatic insurgencies began in AfPak and was revived for the zionists. Russia happened to be on the side more or less tending to progress in both cases, so it had to be opposed. The warmongers are always the US MIC/intel, allied with the anti-American zionist fascists for Mideast wars.
mike k , December 10, 2017 at 11:05 amSheldon Adelson, Soros, Saban all wanted carving up of Arabic states into small sectarian pieces (No Nasseric pan-Arabic states, a threat to Israël). And protracted wars of total destruction. Easy.
Joe Tedesky , December 10, 2017 at 11:12 amThe US Military is part of the largest terrorist organization on Earth. For the super rich and powerful rulers of that US Mafia, the ignorant religious fanatics and other tools of Empire are just pawns in their game of world domination and universal slavery for all but themselves. These monsters of evil delight in profiting from the destruction of others; but their insatiable greed for more power will never be satisfied, and will become the cause of the annihilation of every living thing – including themselves. But like other sold out human addicts, at this point they don't really care, and will blindly pursue their nightmare quest to the very end – and perhaps they secretly hope that that final end of everything will at last quench their burning appetite for blood and gold.
Brendan , December 10, 2017 at 12:09 pmI'm leaving a link to a very long David Swanson article, where Mr Swanson goes into quite a lot of detail to how the U.S. wages war.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2017/12/76-years-pearl-harbor-lies.html
What's interesting of course is how not just Washington, but much of the 'left' also cheered on the jihadists.
Of course, they were told (by whom?) that the jihadists were 'democratic rebels' and 'freedom fighters' who just wanted to 'bring democracy' to Syria, and get rid of the 'tyrant Assad.' 5 years later, so much of the nonsense about "local councils" and "white helmets" has been exposed for what it was. Yet many 'free thinking' people bought the propaganda. Just like they do on Russiagate. Who needs an "alt-right" when America's "left" is a total disgrace?
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Nov 13, 2017 | www.truthdig.com
Nearly a year after the presidential election, the scandal over accusations of Russian political interference in the 2016 election has gone beyond Donald Trump and reached into the nebulous world of online media. On November 1, Congress held hearings on "Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online." The proceedings saw executives from Facebook, Twitter and Youtube subjected to tongue-lashings from lawmakers like Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who howled about Russian online trolls "spread[ing] stories about abuse of black Americans by law enforcement."
In perhaps the most chilling moment of the hearings, and the most overlooked, Clint Watts, a former U.S. Army officer who had branded himself an expert on Russian meddling, appeared before a nearly empty Senate chamber. Watts conjured up a stark landscape of American carnage, with shadowy Russian operatives stage managing the chaos.
"Civil wars don't start with gunshots, they start with words," he proclaimed. "America's war with itself has already begun. We all must act now on the social media battlefield to quell information rebellions that can quickly lead to violent confrontations and easily transform us into the Divided States of America."
Next, Watts suggested a government-imposed campaign of media censorship: "Stopping the false information artillery barrage landing on social media users comes only when those outlets distributing bogus stories are silenced: silence the guns and the barrage will end."
The censorious overtone of Watts' testimony was unmistakable. He demanded that government news inquisitors drive dissident media off the internet and warned that Americans would spear one another with bayonets if they failed to act. And not one member of Congress rose to object. In fact, many echoed his call for media suppression in the House and Senate hearings, with Democrats like Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Jackie Speier agreeing the most vehemently. The spectacle perfectly illustrated the madness of Russiagate, with liberal lawmakers springboarding off the fear of Russian meddling to demand that Americans be forbidden from consuming the wrong kinds of media -- including content that amplified the message of progressive causes like Black Lives Matter.
Details of exactly what transpired vis a vis Russia and the U.S. in social media in 2016 are still emerging. This year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published a declassified version of the intelligence community's report on "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections," written by CIA, FBI and NSA, with its central conclusion that Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order."
To be sure, there is ample evidence that Russian-linked trolls have attempted to exploit wedge issues on social media platforms. But the impact of these schemes on real-world events appears to have been exaggerated. According to Facebook's data , 56 percent of Russian-linked ads appeared after the 2016 presidential election, and another 25 percent "were never shown to anyone." The ads were said to have "reached" over 100 million people, but that assumes that Facebook users did not scroll through or otherwise ignore them, as they do with most ads. Content emanating from "Russia-linked" sources on YouTube, meanwhile, managed to rack up hit totals in the hundreds , not exactly a viral smash.
Facebook posts traced to the infamous Internet Research Agency troll factory in Russia amounted to only 0.0004 percent of total content that appeared on the social network. (Some of these posts targeted "animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies," while another hawked an LGBT-themed " Buff Bernie coloring book for Berniacs.") According to its " deliberately broad" review , Twitter found that only 0.74 percent of its election-related tweets were "Russian-linked." Google, for its part, documented a grand total of $4,700 of "Russian-linked ad spending" during the 2016 election cycle. While some have argued that the Russian-linked ads were micro-targeted, and could have shifted key electoral voting blocs, these ads appeared in a media climate awash in a multi-billion dollar deluge of political ad spending from both established parties and dark money super PACs.
However, a blitz of feverish corporate media coverage and tension-filled congressional hearings has convinced a whopping 82 percent of Democrats that "Russian-backed" social media content played a central role in swinging the 2016 election. Russian meddling has even earned comparisons by lawmakers to Pearl Harbor, to "acts of war," and by Hillary Clinton to the attacks of 9/11 . And in an inadvertent way, these overblown comparisons were apt.
As during the aftermath of 9/11, the fallout from Russiagate has spawned a multimillion-dollar industry of pundits and self-styled experts eager to exploit the frenetic atmosphere for publicity and profits. Many of these figures have emerged out of the swamp that flowed from the war on terror and are gravitating toward the growing Russia fearmongering industrial complex in search of new opportunities. Few of these characters have become as prominent as Clint Watts.
So who is Watts, and how did he emerge seemingly from nowhere to become the star congressional witness on Russian meddling?
Dubious Expertise, Impressive Salesmanship
A former U.S. Army officer who spent years in obscurity at a defense industry funded think tank called the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI), Watts has become a go-to source for cable news producers and print journalists on the subject of Russian bots, always available with a comment that reinforces the sense that America is under sustained cyborg attack. This September, his employers at FPRI hailed him as "the leading expert on developments related to Russian-backed efforts to not only influence the 2016 presidential election, but also to inflame racial and cultural divisions within the U.S. and across Europe."
Watts boasts an impressive-looking bio that is replete with fancy sounding fellowships at national security-oriented outfits, including George Washington University's Center Cyber and Homeland Security. His bio also indicates that he served on an FBI Joint Terror Task Force.
Though Watts is best known for his punditry on Russian interference, it's fair to say he is as much an expert on Russian affairs as Harvey Weinstein is a trusted voice on feminism. Indeed, Watts appears to speak no Russian, has no record of reporting or scholarship from inside Russia, and has produced little to no work of any discernible academic value on Russian affairs.
Whether or not he has the substance to support his claims of expertise, Watts has proven a talented salesman, catering to popular fears about Russian interference while he plies credulous lawmakers with ease.
Before Congress, a String of Deceptions
Back on March 30, as the narrative of Russian meddling gathered momentum, Watts made his first appearance before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee.
Seated at the front of a hearing room packed with reporters, Watts introduced Congress to concepts of Russian meddling that were novel at the time, but which have become part of Beltway newspeak. His testimony turned out to be a signal moment in Russiagate, helping transition the narrative of the scandal from Russia-Trump collusion to the wider issue of online influence.
In the widely publicized testimony, Watts explained to the panel of senators that he first noticed the pernicious presence of Russian social media bots after he co-authored an article in 2014 in Foreign Affairs titled, " The Good and The Bad of Ahrar al Sham ." The article urged the US to arm a group of Syrian Salafi insurgents known for its human rights abuses , sectarianism and off-and-on alliances with Al Qaeda. Watts and his co-authors insisted that Ahrar al-Sham was the best proxy force for wreaking havoc on the Syrian government weakening its allies in Iran and Russia. Right below the headline, Watts and his co-authors celebrated Ahrar al-Sham as "an Al Qaeda linked group worth befriending."
Watts rehashed the same argument at FPRI a year later, urging the U.S. government to harness jihadist terror as a weapon against Russia. "The U.S. at a minimum, through covert or semi-covert platforms, should take advantage and amplify these free alternative [jihadist] narratives to provide Russia some payback for recent years' aggression," he wrote. In another paper, Watts asked , "Why shouldn't the U.S. redirect some of the jihadi hatred towards those with the dirtiest hands in the Syrian conflict: Russia and Iran?" Watts did not specify whether the theater of covert warfare should be limited to the Syrian battlefield, or if he sought to encourage jihadists to carry out terrorist acts inside Russia and Iran.
The premise of these op-eds should have raised serious concerns about Watts and his colleagues, and even questions about their sanity. They had marketed themselves as national security experts, yet they were lobbying the US to "befriend" the allies of Al Qaeda, the group that brought down the Twin Towers. (Ahrar al-Sham was founded by Abu Khalid al-Suri, a Madrid bombing suspect who was named by Spanish investigators as Osama bin-Laden's courier.) Anyone cynical enough to put such ideas into public circulation should have expected a backlash. But when the inevitable wave of criticism came, Watts dismissed it all as a Russian bot attack.
Addressing the Senate panel, Watts said that those who took to social media to mock and criticize his Foreign Affairs article were, in fact, Russian bots. He provided no evidence to support the claim, and a look at his single tweet promoting the article shows that he was criticized only once (by @Navsteva, a Twitter user known for defending the Syrian government against regime change proponents, not an automated bot). Nevertheless, Watts painted the incident as proof that Russia had revived a Cold War information warfare strategy of "Active Measures," which was supposedly aimed at "crumbl[ing] democracies from the inside out [by] creating political divisions."
Next, Watts introduced his signature theme, claiming that Russia manipulated civil rights protests to exploit divisions in American society. Declaring that "pro-Russian" outlets were spreading "chaos in Black Lives Matter protests" by deploying active measures, Watts did not bother to say what those measures were. In fact, the only piece of proof he offered (in a Daily Beast transcript of his testimony) was a single link to an RT article that factually documented a squabble between Black Lives Matter protesters and white supremacists -- an incident that had been widely covered by other outlets, from the Houston Chronicle to the Washington Post . Watts did not explain how this one report by RT sowed any chaos, or whether it had any effect at all on actual events.
Watts then moved to the main course of his testimony, focusing on how Trump employed Russian "active measures" to attack his opponents. Watts told the Senate panel that the Russian-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik had produced a false report on the U.S. airbase in Incirlik, Turkey being "overrun by terrorists." He presented the Russian stories as the anchor for a massive influence operation that featured swarms of Russian bots across social media. And he claimed that then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort invoked the incident to deflect from negative media coverage, suggesting that Trump was coordinating strategy with the Kremlin. In reality, it was Watts who was spreading the fake news.
In the articles cited by Watts during his testimony, neither RT nor Sputnik made any reference to "terrorists" taking over Incirlik Airbase. Rather, these outlets compiled tweets by Turkish activists and sourced their coverage to a report by Hurriyet, one of Turkey's largest mainstream papers. In fact, the incident was reported by virtually every major Turkish news organization ( here , here , here and here ). What's more, the events appeared to have taken place approximately as RT and Sputnik reported it, with protesters readying to protect the airbase from a coup while Turkish police sealed the base's entrances and exits. A look at RT's coverage shows the network even downplayed the severity of the event, citing a tweet by a U.S.-based national security analysis group stating, "We are not finding any evidence of a coup or takeover." This stands entirely at odds with Watts' claim that RT exaggerated the incident to spark chaos.
Watts has pushed his bogus narrative of RT and Sputnik's Incirlik coverage in numerous outlets, including Politico . Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen echoed Watts' false account on the Senate floor while arguing for legislation to force RT out of the U.S. market on political grounds. And Jim Rutenberg, the New York Times' media correspondent, reproduced Watts' distorted account in a major feature on RT and Sputnik's "new theory of war." Almost no one, not one major media organization or public figure, has bothered to fact check these false claims, and few have questioned the agenda behind them.
Questions emailed to Watts via his employers at FPRI received no reply.
Another Watts Deception, This Time Discredited in Court
During his Senate testimony, Watts introduced a second, and even more distorted claim of Trump employing Russian "active measures" to attack his political foes. The details of the story are complex and difficult for a passive audience to absorb, which is probably why Watts has been able to get away with pushing it for so long.
Watts' testimony was the culmination of a mainstream media deception that forced an aspiring reporter out of his job, drove him to contemplate suicide, and ultimately prompted him to take matters into his own hands by suing his antagonists.
The episode began during a Trump rally at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign, when Trump read out an email purportedly from longtime Hillary Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal (the father of this writer), hoping to embarrass Clinton over Benghazi. The text of the email turned out to be part of a column written by the pro-Clinton Newsweek columnist Kurt Eichenwald, not an email by Blumenthal.
The source of Trump's falsehood appeared to have been a report by Bill Moran, then a reporter for Sputnik, the news service funded by the Russian government. Having confused Eichenwald's writing for a Blumenthal email, Moran scrubbed his erroneous article within 20 minutes. Somehow, Moran's retracted article had found its way onto the Trump campaign's radar, a not atypical event for a campaign that had relied on material from far-out sites like Infowars to undercut its opponents.
In his column at Newsweek, Eichenwald framed Moran's honest mistake as the leading edge of a secret Russian influence operation. With help from pro-Clinton elements, Eichenwald's column went viral, earning him slots on CNN and MSNBC, where he howled about the nefarious Russian-Trump-Wikileaks plot he believed he had just exposed. (Glenn Greenwald was perhaps the only reporter with a national platform to highlight Eichenwald's falsifications .) Moran was fired as a result of the fallout, and would have to spend the next several months fighting to correct the record.
When Moran appealed to Eichenwald for a public clarification, Eichenwald staunchly refused. Instead, he offered Moran a job at the New Republic in exchange for his silence and warned him, "If you go public, you'll regret it." (Eichenwald had no role at the New Republic or any clear ability to influence the magazine's hiring decisions.) Moran refused to cooperate, prompting Eichenwald to publish a follow-up piece painting himself as the victim of a Russian "active measures" campaign, and to cast Moran once again as a foreign agent.
When Watts revived Eichenwald's bogus version of events in his Senate testimony, Moran began to spiral into the depths of depression. He even entertained thoughts of suicide. But he ultimately decided to fight, filing a lawsuit against Newsweek's parent company for defamation and libel.
Representing himself in court, Moran elicited a settlement from Newsweek that forced the magazine to scrub all of Eichenwald's articles about him -- a tacit admission that they were false from top to bottom. This meant that the most consequential claim Watts made before the Senate was also a whopping lie.
The day after Watts' deception-laden appearance, he was nevertheless transformed from an obscure national security into a cable news star, with invites from Morning Joe, Rachel Maddow, Meet the Press, and the liberal comedian Samantha Bee, among many others. His testimony received coverage from the gamut of major news outlets, and even earned him a fawning profile from CNN. From out of the blue, Watts had become the star witness of Russiagate, and one of corporate media's favorite pundits.
FPRI, a Pro-War Think Tank Founded by White Supremacist Eugenicists
Before he emerged in the spotlight of Russiagate, Watts languished at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, earning little name recognition outside the insular world of national security pundits. Based in Philadelphia, the FPRI has been described by journalist Mark Ames as "one of the looniest (and spookiest) extreme-right think tanks since the early Cold War days, promoting 'winnable' nuclear war, maximum confrontation with Russia, and attacking anti-colonialism as dangerously unworkable."
Daniel Pipes, the arch-Islamophobe pundit and former FPRI fellow, offered a similar characterization of the think tank, albeit from an alternately opposed angle. "Put most baldly, we have always advocated an activist U.S. foreign policy," Pipes said in a 1991 address to FPRI. He added that the think tank's staff "is not shy about the use of force; were we members of Congress in January 1991, all of us would not only have voted with President Bush and Operation Desert Storm, we would have led the charge."
FPRI was co-founded by Robert Strausz-Hupé, a far-right Austrian emigre, with help from conservative corporations and covert funding from the CIA From the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, Strausz-Hupé gathered a "Philadelphia School" of Cold War hardliners to develop a strategy for protracted war against the Soviet Union. His brain trust included FPRI co-founder Stefan Possony, an Austrian fascist who was a board member of the World Anti-Communist League, the international fascist organization described by journalists Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson as a network of "those responsible for death squads, apartheid, torture, and the extermination of European Jewry." True to his fascist roots, Possony co-authored a racialist tract, " The Geography of Intellect ," that argued that blacks were biologically inferior and that the people of the global South were "genetically unpromising." Strausz-Hupé seized on Possony's racialist theories to inveigh against anti-colonial movements led by "populations incapable of rational thought."
While clamoring for a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union -- and acknowledging that their preferred strategy would cause mass casualties in American cities -- Strausz-Hupé and his band of hawks developed a monomaniacal obsession with Russian propaganda. By the time of the Cuban missile crisis, they were stricken with paranoia, arguing on the pages of the New York Times that filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was a Soviet useful idiot whose film, Dr. Strangelove , advanced "the principal Communist objectives to drive a wedge between the American people and their military leaders."
Ultimately, Strausz-Hupé's fanaticism cost him an ambassadorship, as Sen. William Fulbright scuttled his appointment to serve in Morocco on the grounds that his "hard line, no compromise" approach to communism could shatter the delicate balance of diplomacy. Today, he is remembered fondly on FPRI's website as "an intellectual and intellectual impresario, administrator, statesman, and visionary." His militaristic legacy continues thanks to the prolific presence -- and bellicose politics -- of Watts.
The Paranoid Style
This year, FPRI dedicated its annual gala to honoring Watts' success in mainstreaming the narrative of Russian online meddling. Since I first transcribed a Soundcloud recording of Watts' keynote address, the file has been mysteriously scrubbed from the internet. It is unclear what prompted the removal, however, it is easy to understand why Watts would not want his comments examined by a critical listener. His speech offered a window into a paranoid mindset with a tendency for overblown, unverifiable claims about Russian influence.
While much of the speech was a rehash of Watts' Senate testimony, he spent an unusual amount of time describing the threat he believed Russian intelligence agents posed to his own security. "If you speak up too much, you'll get knocked down," Watts said, claiming that think tank fellows who had been too vocal about Russian meddling had seen their laptops "burned up by malware."
"If someone rises up in prominence, they will suddenly be -- whoof! -- swiped down out of nowhere by some crazy disclosure from their email," Watts added, referring to unspecified Russian retaliatory measures. As usual, he didn't produce concrete evidence or offer any examples.
"Anybody remember the reporters that were outed after the election? Or maybe they tossed up a question to the Clinton campaign and they were gone the next day?" he asked his audience. "That's how it goes."
It was unclear which reporters Watts was referring to, or what incident he could have possibly been alluding to. He offered no details, only innuendo about the state of siege Kremlin actors had supposedly imposed on him and his freedom-fighting colleagues. He even predicted he'd be "hacked and cyber attacked when this recording comes out."
According to Watts, Russian "active measures" had singlehandedly augmented Republican opinion in support of the Kremlin. "It is the greatest success in influence operations in the history of the world," Watts confidently proclaimed. He contrasted Russia's success with his own failures as an American agent of influence working for the U.S. military, a saga in his career that remains largely unexamined.
Domestic Agent of Influence
"I worked in influence operations in counter-terrorism for 15 years," Watts boasted to his audience at FPRI. "We didn't break one or two percent [increase in the approval rating of US foreign policy] in fifteen years and we spent billions a year in tax dollars doing it. I was paid off of those programs. We had almost no success throughout the Middle East."
By Watts' own admission, he had been part of a secret propaganda campaign aimed at manipulating the opinions of Middle Easterners in favor of the hostile American military operating in their midst. And he failed massively, wasting "billions a year in tax dollars."
Given his penchant for deception, this may have been yet another tall tale aimed at burnishing his image as an internet era James Bond. But if the story was even partially true, Watts had inadvertently exposed a severe scandal that, in a fairer world, might have triggered congressional hearings.
Whatever took place, it appears that Watts and his Cold Warrior colleagues are now waging another expensive influence operation, this time directed against the American public. By deploying deceptions, half-truths and hyperbole with the full consent of Congress and in collaboration with the mainstream press, they have managed to convince a majority of Americans that Russia is "trying to knock us down and take us over," as Watts remarked at the FPRI's gala.
In just a matter of months, public consent for an unprecedented array of hostile measures against Russia, from sanctions and consular raids to arbitrary crackdowns on Russian-backed news organizations, has been assiduously manufactured.
It was not until this summer, however, that the influence operation Watts helped establish reached critical capacity. He had approached one of Washington's most respected think tanks, the German Marshall Fund, and secured support for an initiative called the Alliance for Securing Democracy. The new initiative became responsible for a daily blacklist of subversive, "pro-Russian" media outlets, targeting them with the backing of a who's who of national security honchos, from Bill Kristol to former CIA director and ex-Hillary Clinton surrogate Michael Morrell, along with favorable promotion from some of the country's most respected news organizations.
In the next installment of this investigation, we will see how a collection of cranks, counter-terror retreads and online vigilantes overseen by the German Marshall Fund have waged a search-and-destroy mission against dissident media under the guise of combating Russian "active measures," and how the mainstream press has enabled their censorious agenda.
Read part two here .
Max Blumenthal is a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning author of " Goliath ," " Republican Gomorrah ," and " The 51 Day War ." He is the co-host of the podcast, Moderate Rebels . Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal .
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Apr 15, 2015 | antiwar.com
Former Washington insider and four-star General Wesley Clark spilled the beans several years ago on how Paul Wolfowitz and his neoconservative co-conspirators implemented their sweeping plan to destabilize key Middle Eastern countries once it became clear that post-Soviet Russia "won't stop us."As I recently reviewed a YouTube eight-minute clip of General Clark's October 2007 speech, what leaped out at me was that the neocons had been enabled by their assessment that -- after the collapse of the Soviet Union – Russia had become neutralized and posed no deterrent to U.S. military action in the Middle East.
While Clark's public exposé largely escaped attention in the neocon-friendly "mainstream media" (surprise, surprise!), he recounted being told by a senior general at the Pentagon shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 about the Donald Rumsfeld/Paul Wolfowitz-led plan for "regime change" in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.
This was startling enough, I grant you, since officially the United States presents itself as a nation that respects international law, frowns upon other powerful nations overthrowing the governments of weaker states, and – in the aftermath of World War II – condemned past aggressions by Nazi Germany and decried Soviet "subversion" of pro-U.S. nations.
But what caught my eye this time was the significance of Clark's depiction of Wolfowitz in 1992 gloating over what he judged to be a major lesson learned from the Desert Storm attack on Iraq in 1991; namely, "the Soviets won't stop us."
That remark directly addresses a question that has troubled me since March 2003 when George W. Bush attacked Iraq. Would the neocons – widely known as "the crazies" at least among the remaining sane people of Washington – have been crazy enough to opt for war to re-arrange the Middle East if the Soviet Union had not fallen apart in 1991?
The question is not an idle one. Despite the debacle in Iraq and elsewhere, the neocon "crazies" still exercise huge influence in Establishment Washington. Thus, the question now becomes whether, with Russia far more stable and much stronger, the "crazies" are prepared to risk military escalation with Russia over Ukraine, what retired U.S. diplomat William R. Polk deemed a potentially dangerous nuclear confrontation, a "Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse."
Putin's Comment
The geopolitical vacuum that enabled the neocons to try out their "regime change" scheme in the Middle East may have been what Russian President Vladimir Putin was referring to in his state-of-the-nation address on April 25, 2005, when he called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [past] century." Putin's comment has been a favorite meme of those who seek to demonize Putin by portraying him as lusting to re-establish a powerful USSR through aggression in Europe.
But, commenting two years after the Iraq invasion, Putin seemed correct at least in how the neocons exploited the absence of the Russian counterweight to over-extend American power in ways that were harmful to the world, devastating to the people at the receiving end of the neocon interventions, and even detrimental to the United States.
If one takes a step back and attempts an unbiased look at the spread of violence in the Middle East over the past quarter-century, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Putin's comment was on the mark. With Russia a much-weakened military power in the 1990s and early 2000s, there was nothing to deter U.S. policymakers from the kind of adventurism at Russia's soft underbelly that, in earlier years, would have carried considerable risk of armed U.S.-USSR confrontation.
I lived in the USSR during the 1970s and would not wish that kind of restrictive regime on anyone. Until it fell apart, though, it was militarily strong enough to deter Wolfowitz-style adventurism. And I will say that – for the millions of people now dead, injured or displaced by U.S. military action in the Middle East over the past dozen years – the collapse of the Soviet Union as a deterrent to U.S. war-making was not only a "geopolitical catastrophe" but an unmitigated disaster.
Visiting Wolfowitz
In his 2007 speech, General Clark related how in early 1991 he dropped in on Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (and later, from 2001 to 2005, Deputy Secretary of Defense). It was just after a major Shia uprising in Iraq in March 1991. President George H.W. Bush's administration had provoked it, but then did nothing to rescue the Shia from brutal retaliation by Saddam Hussein, who had just survived his Persian Gulf defeat.
According to Clark, Wolfowitz said: "We should have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein. The truth is, one thing we did learn is that we can use our military in the Middle East and the Soviets won't stop us. We've got about five or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet client regimes – Syria, Iran (sic), Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us."
It's now been more than 10 years, of course. But do not be deceived into thinking Wolfowitz and his neocon colleagues believe they have failed in any major way. The unrest they initiated keeps mounting – in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Lebanon – not to mention fresh violence now in full swing in Yemen and the crisis in Ukraine. Yet, the Teflon coating painted on the neocons continues to cover and protect them in the "mainstream media."
True, one neocon disappointment is Iran. It is more stable and less isolated than before; it is playing a sophisticated role in Iraq; and it is on the verge of concluding a major nuclear agreement with the West – barring the throwing of a neocon/Israeli monkey wrench into the works to thwart it, as has been done in the past.
An earlier setback for the neocons came at the end of August 2013 when President Barack Obama decided not to let himself be mouse-trapped by the neocons into ordering U.S. forces to attack Syria. Wolfowitz et al. were on the threshold of having the U.S. formally join the war against Bashar al-Assad's government of Syria when there was the proverbial slip between cup and lip. With the aid of the neocons' new devil-incarnate Vladimir Putin, Obama faced them down and avoided war.
A week after it became clear that the neocons were not going to get their war in Syria, I found myself at the main CNN studio in Washington together with Paul Wolfowitz and former Sen. Joe Lieberman, another important neocon. As I reported in "How War on Syria Lost Its Way," the scene was surreal – funereal, even, with both Wolfowitz and Lieberman very much down-in-the-mouth, behaving as though they had just watched their favorite team lose the Super Bowl.
Israeli/Neocon Preferences
But the neocons are nothing if not resilient. Despite their grotesque disasters, like the Iraq War, and their disappointments, like not getting their war on Syria, they neither learn lessons nor change goals. They just readjust their aim, shooting now at Putin over Ukraine as a way to clear the path again for "regime change" in Syria and Iran. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Why Neocons Seek to Destabilize Russia."]
The neocons also can take some solace from their "success" at enflaming the Middle East with Shia and Sunni now at each other's throats – a bad thing for many people of the world and certainly for the many innocent victims in the region, but not so bad for the neocons. After all, it is the view of Israeli leaders and their neocon bedfellows (and women) that the internecine wars among Muslims provide at least some short-term advantages for Israel as it consolidates control over the Palestinian West Bank.
In a Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity memorandum for President Obama on Sept. 6, 2013, we called attention to an uncommonly candid report about Israeli/neocon motivation, written by none other than the Israel-friendly New York Times Bureau Chief in Jerusalem Jodi Rudoren on Sept. 2, 2013, just two days after Obama took advantage of Putin's success in persuading the Syrians to allow their chemical weapons to be destroyed and called off the planned attack on Syria, causing consternation among neocons in Washington.
Rudoren can perhaps be excused for her naïve lack of "political correctness." She had been barely a year on the job, had very little prior experience with reporting on the Middle East, and – in the excitement about the almost-attack on Syria – she apparently forgot the strictures normally imposed on the Times' reporting from Jerusalem. In any case, Israel's priorities became crystal clear in what Rudoren wrote.
In her article, entitled "Israel Backs Limited Strike Against Syria," Rudoren noted that the Israelis were arguing, quietly, that the best outcome for Syria's (then) 2 ½-year-old civil war, at least for the moment, was no outcome:
"For Jerusalem, the status quo, horrific as it may be from a humanitarian perspective, seems preferable to either a victory by Mr. Assad's government and his Iranian backers or a strengthening of rebel groups, increasingly dominated by Sunni jihadis.
"'This is a playoff situation in which you need both teams to lose, but at least you don't want one to win - we'll settle for a tie,' said Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general in New York. 'Let them both bleed, hemorrhage to death: that's the strategic thinking here. As long as this lingers, there's no real threat from Syria.'"
Clear enough? If this is the way Israel's leaders continue to regard the situation in Syria, then they look on deeper U.S. involvement – overt or covert – as likely to ensure that there is no early resolution of the conflict there. The longer Sunni and Shia are killing each other, not only in Syria but also across the region as a whole, the safer Tel Aviv's leaders calculate Israel is.
Favoring Jihadis
But Israeli leaders have also made clear that if one side must win, they would prefer the Sunni side, despite its bloody extremists from Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. In September 2013, shortly after Rudoren's article, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, then a close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told the Jerusalem Post that Israel favored the Sunni extremists over Assad.
"The greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc," Oren said in an interview. "We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren't backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran." He said this was the case even if the "bad guys" were affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
In June 2014, Oren – then speaking as a former ambassador – said Israel would even prefer a victory by the Islamic State, which was massacring captured Iraqi soldiers and beheading Westerners, than the continuation of the Iranian-backed Assad in Syria. "From Israel's perspective, if there's got to be an evil that's got to prevail, let the Sunni evil prevail," Oren said.
Netanyahu sounded a similar theme in his March 3, 2015 speech to the U.S. Congress in which he trivialized the threat from the Islamic State with its "butcher knives, captured weapons and YouTube" when compared to Iran, which he accused of "gobbling up the nations" of the Middle East.
That Syria's main ally is Iran with which it has a mutual defense treaty plays a role in Israeli calculations. Accordingly, while some Western leaders would like to achieve a realistic if imperfect settlement of the Syrian civil war, others who enjoy considerable influence in Washington would just as soon see the Assad government and the entire region bleed out.
As cynical and cruel as this strategy is, it isn't all that hard to understand. Yet, it seems to be one of those complicated, politically charged situations well above the pay-grade of the sophomores advising President Obama – who, sad to say, are no match for the neocons in the Washington Establishment. Not to mention the Netanyahu-mesmerized Congress.
Corker Uncorked
Speaking of Congress, a year after Rudoren's report, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, who now chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, divulged some details about the military attack that had been planned against Syria, while lamenting that it was canceled. In doing so, Corker called Obama's abrupt change on Aug. 31, 2013, in opting for negotiations over open war on Syria, "the worst moment in U.S. foreign policy since I've been here." Following the neocon script, Corker blasted the deal (since fully implemented) with Putin and the Syrians to rid Syria of its chemical weapons.
Corker complained, "In essence – I'm sorry to be slightly rhetorical – we jumped into Putin's lap." A big No-No, of course – especially in Congress – to "jump into Putin's lap" even though Obama was able to achieve the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons without the United States jumping into another Middle East war.
It would have been nice, of course, if General Clark had thought to share his inside-Pentagon information earlier with the rest of us. In no way should he be seen as a whistleblower.
At the time of his September 2007 speech, he was deep into his quixotic attempt to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2008. In other words, Clark broke the omerta code of silence observed by virtually all U.S. generals, even post-retirement, merely to put some distance between himself and the debacle in Iraq – and win some favor among anti-war Democrats. It didn't work, so he endorsed Hillary Clinton; that didn't work, so he endorsed Barack Obama.
Wolfowitz, typically, has landed on his feet. He is now presidential hopeful Jeb Bush's foreign policy/defense adviser, no doubt outlining his preferred approach to the Middle East chessboard to his new boss. Does anyone know the plural of "bedlam?"
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods in all four of CIA's main directorates.
Reprinted with permission from Consortium News.
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Nov 30, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
According to recent reports the Heritage Foundation, clearly the most established and many would say politically influential conservative think tank in Washington, is considering David Trulio, Lockheed Martin vice president and longtime lobbyist for the defense industry, to be its next president. While Heritage's connection to Washington's sprawling national security industry is already well-established, naming Trulio as its president might be seen as gilding the lily.If anything, reading this report made me more aware of the degree to which the "conservative policy community" in Washington depends on the whims and interests of particular donors.
And this relationship is apparently no longer something to be concealed or embarrassed by. One can now be open about being in the pocket of the defense industry. Trulio's potential elevation to Heritage president at what we can assume will be an astronomical salary, will no doubt grease the already well-oiled pipeline of funds from major contractors to this "conservative" foundation, which already operates with an annual disclosed budget of almost $100 million.
A 2009 Heritage Foundation report, " Maintaining the Superiority of America's Defense Industrial Base ," called for further government investment in aircraft weaponry for "ensuring a superior fighting force" and "sustaining international stability." In 2011, senior national security fellow James Carafano wrote " Five Steps to Defend America's Industrial Defense Base ," which complained about a "fifty billion dollar under-procurement by the Pentagon" for buying new weaponry. In 2016, Heritage made the case for several years of reinvestment to get the military back on "sound footing," with an increase in fiscal year 2016 described as "an encouraging start."
These special pleas pose a question: which came first, Heritage's heavy dependence on funds from defense giants, or the foundation's belief that unless we steadily increase our military arsenal we'll be endangering "international stability"? Perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle: someone who is predisposed to go in a certain direction may be more inclined to do so if he is being rewarded in return. Incidentally, the 2009 position paper seems to be directing the government to throw more taxpayer dollars to Boeing than to its competitor Lockheed. But it seems both defense giants have landed a joint contract this year to produce a new submersible for the Navy, so it may no longer be necessary to pick sides on that one at least. No doubt both corporations will continue to look after Heritage, which will predictably call for further increases, whether they be in aerospace or shipbuilding.
Although one needn't reduce everything to dollars and cents, if we're looking at the issues Heritage and other likeminded foundations are likely to push today, it's far more probable they'll be emphasizing the national security state rather than, say, opposition to gay marriage or the defense of traditional gender roles. There's lots more money to be made advocating for the former rather than the latter. In May 2013, Heritage sponsored a formal debate between "two conservatives" and "two liberals" on the issue of defense spending, with Heritage and National Review presenting the "conservative" side. I wondered as I listened to part of this verbal battle why is was considered "conservative" to call for burdening American taxpayers with massive increases in the purchase of Pentagon weaponry and planes that take 17 years to get off the ground.
Like American higher education, Conservatism Inc. is very big business. Whatever else it's about rates a very far second to keeping the money flowing. "Conservative" positions are often simply causes for which foundations and media enterprises that have the word "conservative" attached to them are paid to represent. It is the label carried by an institution or publication, not necessarily the position it takes, that makes what NR or Heritage advocates "conservative."
In any event, Mr. Trulio won't have to travel far if he takes the Heritage helm. He and his corporation are already ensconced only a few miles away from Heritage's Massachusetts Avenue headquarters, if the information provided by Lockheed Martin is correct. It says: "Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace company that employs approximately 98,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services." A company like that can certainly afford to underwrite a think tank -- if the price is right.
Paul Gottfried is Raffensperger Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Elizabethtown College, where he taught for twenty-five years. He is a Guggenheim recipient and a Yale PhD. He writes for many websites and scholarly journals and is the author of thirteen books, most recently Fascism: Career of a Concept and Revisions and Dissents . His books have been translated into multiple languages and seem to enjoy special success in Eastern Europe.
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Nov 30, 2017 | www.unz.com
Money Imperialism Introduction to the German Edition Michael Hudson November 29, 2017 3,500 Words 1 Comment Reply
In theory, the global financial system is supposed to help every country gain. Mainstream teaching of international finance, trade and "foreign aid" (defined simply as any government credit) depicts an almost utopian system uplifting all countries, not stripping their assets and imposing austerity. The reality since World War I is that the United States has taken the lead in shaping the international financial system to promote gains for its own bankers, farm exporters, its oil and gas sector, and buyers of foreign resources – and most of all, to collect on debts owed to it.
Each time this global system has broken down over the past century, the major destabilizing force has been American over-reach and the drive by its bankers and bondholders for short-term gains. The dollar-centered financial system is leaving more industrial as well as Third World countries debt-strapped. Its three institutional pillars – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and World Trade Organization – have imposed monetary, fiscal and financial dependency, most recently by the post-Soviet Baltics, Greece and the rest of southern Europe. The resulting strains are now reaching the point where they are breaking apart the arrangements put in place after World War II.
The most destructive fiction of international finance is that all debts can be paid, and indeed should be paid, even when this tears economies apart by forcing them into austerity – to save bondholders, not labor and industry. Yet European countries, and especially Germany, have shied from pressing for a more balanced global economy that would foster growth for all countries and avoid the current economic slowdown and debt deflation.
Imposing austerity on Germany after World War I
After World War I the U.S. Government deviated from what had been traditional European policy – forgiving military support costs among the victors. U.S. officials demanded payment for the arms shipped to its Allies in the years before America entered the Great War in 1917. The Allies turned to Germany for reparations to pay these debts. Headed by John Maynard Keynes, British diplomats sought to clean their hands of responsibility for the consequences by promising that all the money they received from Germany would simply be forwarded to the U.S. Treasury.
The sums were so unpayably high that Germany was driven into austerity and collapse. The nation suffered hyperinflation as the Reichsbank printed marks to throw onto the foreign exchange also were pushed into financial collapse. The debt deflation was much like that of Third World debtors a generation ago, and today's southern European PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain).
In a pretense that the reparations and Inter-Ally debt tangle could be made solvent, a triangular flow of payments was facilitated by a convoluted U.S. easy-money policy. American investors sought high returns by buying German local bonds; German municipalities turned over the dollars they received to the Reichsbank for domestic currency; and the Reichsbank used this foreign exchange to pay reparations to Britain and other Allies, enabling these countries to pay the United States what it demanded.
But solutions based on attempts to keep debts of such magnitude in place by lending debtors the money to pay can only be temporary. The U.S. Federal Reserve sustained this triangular flow by holding down U.S. interest rates. This made it attractive for American investors to buy German municipal bonds and other high-yielding debts. It also deterred Wall Street from drawing funds away from Britain, which would have driven its economy deeper into austerity after the General Strike of 1926. But domestically, low U.S. interest rates and easy credit spurred a real estate bubble, followed by a stock market bubble that burst in 1929. The triangular flow of payments broke down in 1931, leaving a legacy of debt deflation burdening the U.S. and European economies. The Great Depression lasted until outbreak of World War II in 1939.
Planning for the postwar period took shape as the war neared its end. U.S. diplomats had learned an important lesson. This time there would be no arms debts or reparations. The global financial system would be stabilized – on the basis of gold, and on creditor-oriented rules. By the end of the 1940s the United States held some 75 percent of the world's monetary gold stock. That established the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, freely convertible into gold at the 1933 parity of $35 an ounce.
It also implied that once again, as in the 1920s, European balance-of-payments deficits would have to be financed mainly by the United States. Recycling of official government credit was to be filtered via the IMF and World Bank, in which U.S. diplomats alone had veto power to reject policies they found not to be in their national interest. International financial "stability" thus became a global control mechanism – to maintain creditor-oriented rules centered in the United States.
To obtain gold or dollars as backing for their own domestic monetary systems, other countries had to follow the trade and investment rules laid down by the United States. These rules called for relinquishing control over capital movements or restrictions on foreign takeovers of natural resources and the public domain as well as local industry and banking systems.
By 1950 the dollar-based global economic system had become increasingly untenable. Gold continued flowing to the United States, strengthening the dollar – until the Korean War reversed matters. From 1951 through 1971 the United States ran a deepening balance-of-payments deficit, which stemmed entirely from overseas military spending. (Private-sector trade and investment was steadily in balance.)
U.S. Treasury debt replaces the gold exchange standard
The foreign military spending that helped return American gold to Europe became a flood as the Vietnam War spread across Asia after 1962. The Treasury kept the dollar's exchange rate stable by selling gold via the London Gold Pool at $35 an ounce. Finally, in August 1971, President Nixon stopped the drain by closing the Gold Pool and halting gold convertibility of the dollar.
There was no plan for what would happen next. Most observers viewed cutting the dollar's link to gold as a defeat for the United States. It certainly ended the postwar financial order as designed in 1944. But what happened next was just the reverse of a defeat. No longer able to buy gold after 1971 (without inciting strong U.S. disapproval), central banks found only one asset in which to hold their balance-of-payments surpluses: U.S. Treasury debt. These securities no longer were "as good as gold." The United States issued them at will to finance soaring domestic budget deficits.
By shifting from gold to the dollars thrown off by the U.S. balance-of-payments deficit, the foundation of global monetary reserves came to be dominated by the U.S. military spending that continued to flood foreign central banks with surplus dollars. America's balance-of-payments deficit thus supplied the dollars that financed its domestic budget deficits and bank credit creation – via foreign central banks recycling U.S. foreign spending back to the U.S. Treasury.
In effect, foreign countries have been taxed without representation over how their loans to the U.S. Government are employed. European central banks were not yet prepared to create their own sovereign wealth funds to invest their dollar inflows in foreign stocks or direct ownership of businesses. They simply used their trade and payments surpluses to finance the U.S. budget deficit. This enabled the Treasury to cut domestic tax rates, above all on the highest income brackets.
U.S. monetary imperialism confronted European and Asian central banks with a dilemma that remains today: If they do not turn around and buy dollar assets, their currencies will rise against the dollar. Buying U.S. Treasury securities is the only practical way to stabilize their exchange rates – and in so doing, to prevent their exports from rising in dollar terms and being priced out of dollar-area markets.
The system may have developed without foresight, but quickly became deliberate. My book Super Imperialism sold best in the Washington DC area, and I was given a large contract through the Hudson Institute to explain to the Defense Department exactly how this extractive financial system worked. I was brought to the White House to explain it, and U.S. geostrategists used my book as a how-to-do-it manual (not my original intention).
Attention soon focused on the oil-exporting countries. After the U.S. quadrupled its grain export prices shortly after the 1971 gold suspension, the oil-exporting countries quadrupled their oil prices. I was informed at a White House meeting that U.S. diplomats had let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries know that they could charge as much as they wanted for their oil, but that the United States would treat it as an act of war not to keep their oil proceeds in U.S. dollar assets.
This was the point at which the international financial system became explicitly extractive. But it took until 2009, for the first attempt to withdraw from this system to occur. A conference was convened at Yekaterinburg, Russia, by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The alliance comprised Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kirghizstan and Uzbekistan, with observer status for Iran, India, Pakistan and Mongolia. U.S. officials asked to attend as observers, but their request was rejected.
The U.S. response has been to extend the new Cold War into the financial sector, rewriting the rules of international finance to benefit the United States and its satellites – and to deter countries from seeking to break free from America's financial free ride.
The IMF changes its rules to isolate Russia and China
Aiming to isolate Russia and China, the Obama Administration's confrontational diplomacy has drawn the Bretton Woods institutions more tightly under US/NATO control. In so doing, it is disrupting the linkages put in place after World War II.
The U.S. plan was to hurt Russia's economy so much that it would be ripe for regime change ("color revolution"). But the effect was to drive it eastward, away from Western Europe to consolidate its long-term relations with China and Central Asia. Pressing Europe to shift its oil and gas purchases to U.S. allies, U.S. sanctions have disrupted German and other European trade and investment with Russia and China. It also has meant lost opportunities for European farmers, other exporters and investors – and a flood of refugees from failed post-Soviet states drawn into the NATO orbit, most recently Ukraine.
To U.S. strategists, what made changing IMF rules urgent was Ukraine's $3 billion debt falling due to Russia's National Wealth Fund in December 2015. The IMF had long withheld credit to countries refusing to pay other governments. This policy aimed primarily at protecting the financial claims of the U.S. Government, which usually played a lead role in consortia with other governments and U.S. banks. But under American pressure the IMF changed its rules in January 2015. Henceforth, it announced, it would indeed be willing to provide credit to countries in arrears other governments – implicitly headed by China (which U.S. geostrategists consider to be their main long-term adversary), Russia and others that U.S. financial warriors might want to isolate in order to force neoliberal privatization policies. [1] I provide the full background in "The IMF Changes its Rules to Isolate China and Russia," December 9, 2015, available on michael-hudson.com, Naked Capitalism , Counterpunch and Johnson's Russia List .
Article I of the IMF's 1944-45 founding charter prohibits it from lending to a member engaged in civil war or at war with another member state, or for military purposes generally. An obvious reason for this rule is that such a country is unlikely to earn the foreign exchange to pay its debt. Bombing Ukraine's own Donbass region in the East after its February 2014 coup d'état destroyed its export industry, mainly to Russia.
Withholding IMF credit could have been a lever to force adherence to the Minsk peace agreements, but U.S. diplomacy rejected that opportunity. When IMF head Christine Lagarde made a new loan to Ukraine in spring 2015, she merely expressed a verbal hope for peace. Ukrainian President Porochenko announced the next day that he would step up his civil war against the Russian-speaking population in eastern Ukraine. One and a half-billion dollars of the IMF loan were given to banker Ihor Kolomoiski and disappeared offshore, while the oligarch used his domestic money to finance an anti-Donbass army. A million refugees were driven east into Russia; others fled west via Poland as the economy and Ukraine's currency plunged.
The IMF broke four of its rules by lending to Ukraine: (1) Not to lend to a country that has no visible means to pay back the loan (the "No More Argentinas" rule, adopted after the IMF's disastrous 2001 loan to that country). (2) Not to lend to a country that repudiates its debt to official creditors (the rule originally intended to enforce payment to U.S.-based institutions). (3) Not to lend to a country at war – and indeed, destroying its export capacity and hence its balance-of-payments ability to pay back the loan. Finally (4), not to lend to a country unlikely to impose the IMF's austerity "conditionalities." Ukraine did agree to override democratic opposition and cut back pensions, but its junta proved too unstable to impose the austerity terms on which the IMF insisted.
U.S. neoliberalism promotes privatization carve-ups of debtor countries
Since World War II the United States has used the Dollar Standard and its dominant role in the IMF and World Bank to steer trade and investment along lines benefiting its own economy. But now that the growth of China's mixed economy has outstripped all others while Russia finally is beginning to recover, countries have the option of borrowing from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and other non-U.S. consortia.
At stake is much more than just which nations will get the contracting and banking business. At issue is whether the philosophy of development will follow the classical path based on public infrastructure investment, or whether public sectors will be privatized and planning turned over to rent-seeking corporations.
What made the United States and Germany the leading industrial nations of the 20 th century – and more recently, China – has been public investment in economic infrastructure. The aim was to lower the price of living and doing business by providing basic services on a subsidized basis or freely. By contrast, U.S. privatizers have brought debt leverage to bear on Third World countries, post-Soviet economies and most recently on southern Europe to force selloffs. Current plans to cap neoliberal policy with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement (TAFTA) go so far as to disable government planning power to the financial and corporate sector.
American strategists evidently hoped that the threat of isolating Russia, China and other countries would bring them to heel if they tried to denominate trade and investment in their own national currencies. Their choice would be either to suffer sanctions like those imposed on Cuba and Iran, or to avoid exclusion by acquiescing in the dollarized financial and trade system and its drives to financialize their economies under U.S. control.
The problem with surrendering is that this Washington Consensus is extractive and lives in the short run, laying the seeds of financial dependency, debt-leveraged bubbles and subsequent debt deflation and austerity. The financial business plan is to carve out opportunities for price gouging and corporate profits. Today's U.S.-sponsored trade and investment treaties would make governments pay fines equal to the amount that environmental and price regulations, laws protecting consumers and other social policies might reduce corporate profits. "Companies would be able to demand compensation from countries whose health, financial, environmental and other public interest policies they thought to be undermining their interests, and take governments before extrajudicial tribunals. These tribunals, organised under World Bank and UN rules, would have the power to order taxpayers to pay extensive compensation over legislation seen as undermining a company's 'expected future profits.' "
This policy threat is splitting the world into pro-U.S. satellites and economies maintaining public infrastructure investment and what used to be viewed as progressive capitalism. U.S.-sponsored neoliberalism supporting its own financial and corporate interests has driven Russia, China and other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization into an alliance to protect their economic self-sufficiency rather than becoming dependent on dollarized credit enmeshing them in foreign-currency debt.
At the center of today's global split are the last few centuries of Western social and democratic reform. Seeking to follow the classical Western development path by retaining a mixed public/private economy, China, Russia and other nations find it easier to create new institutions such as the AIIB than to reform the dollar standard IMF and World Bank. Their choice is between short-term gains by dependency leading to austerity, or long-term development with independence and ultimate prosperity.
The price of resistance involves risking military or covert overthrow. Long before the Ukraine crisis, the United States has dropped the pretense of backing democracies. The die was cast in 1953 with the coup against Iran's secular government, and the 1954 coup in Guatemala to oppose land reform. Support for client oligarchies and dictatorships in Latin America in the 1960 and '70s was highlighted by the overthrow of Allende in Chile and Operation Condor's assassination program throughout the continent. Under President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United States has claimed that America's status as the world's "indispensible nation" entitled it back the recent coups in Honduras and Ukraine, and to sponsor the NATO attack on Libya and Syria, leaving Europe to absorb the refugees.
Germany's choice
This is not how the Enlightenment was supposed to evolve. The industrial takeoff of Germany and other European nations involved a long fight to free markets from the land rents and financial charges siphoned off by their landed aristocracies and bankers. That was the essence of classical 19 th -century political economy and 20 th -century social democracy. Most economists a century ago expected industrial capitalism to produce an economy of abundance, and democratic reforms to endorse public infrastructure investment and regulation to hold down the cost of living and doing business. But U.S. economic diplomacy now threatens to radically reverse this economic ideology by aiming to dismantle public regulatory power and impose a radical privatization agenda under the TTIP and TAFTA.
Textbook trade theory depicts trade and investment as helping poorer countries catch up, compelling them to survive by becoming more democratic to overcome their vested interests and oligarchies along the lines pioneered by European and North American industrial economies. Instead, the world is polarizing, not converging. The trans-Atlantic financial bubble has left a legacy of austerity since 2008. Debt-ridden economies are being told to cope with their downturns by privatizing their public domain.
The immediate question facing Germany and the rest of Western Europe is how long they will sacrifice their trade and investment opportunities with Russia, Iran and other economies by adhering to U.S.-sponsored sanctions. American intransigence threatens to force an either/or choice in what looms as a seismic geopolitical shift over the proper role of governments: Should their public sectors provide basic services and protect populations from predatory monopolies, rent extraction and financial polarization?
Today's global financial crisis can be traced back to World War I and its aftermath. The principle that needed to be voiced was the right of sovereign nations not to be forced to sacrifice their economic survival on the altar of inter-government and private debt demands. The concept of nationhood embodied in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia based international law on the principle of parity of sovereign states and non-interference. Without a global alternative to letting debt dynamics polarize societies and tear economies apart, monetary imperialism by creditor nations is inevitable.
The past century's global fracture between creditor and debtor economies has interrupted what seemed to be Europe's democratic destiny to empower governments to override financial and other rentier interests. Instead, the West is following U.S. diplomatic leadership back into the age when these interests ruled governments. This conflict between creditors and democracy, between oligarchy and economic growth (and indeed, survival) will remain the defining issue of our epoch over the next generation, and probably for the remainder of the 21 st century.
Endnotes
[1] I provide the full background in "The IMF Changes its Rules to Isolate China and Russia," December 9, 2015, available on michael-hudson.com, Naked Capitalism , Counterpunch and Johnson's Russia List .
[2] Lori M. Wallach, "The corporation invasion," La Monde Diplomatique , December 2, 2013, http://mondediplo.com/2013/12/02tafta . She adds: "Some investors have a very broad conception of their rights. European companies have recently launched legal actions against the raising of the minimum wage in Egypt; Renco has fought anti-toxic emissions policy in Peru, using a free trade agreement between that country and the US to defend its right to pollute ( 6 ). US tobacco giant Philip Morris has launched cases against Uruguay and Australia over their anti-smoking legislation." See also Yves Smith , " Germany Bucking Toxic, Nation-State Eroding Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ," Naked Capitalism , July 17, 2014 , and " Germany Turning Sour on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership ," Naked Capitalism, October 30, 2014 .
Priss Factor , Website November 30, 2017 at 5:28 am GMT
More like Dollar SupremacismThe Alarmist , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 8:02 am GMT
"Austerity" is such a misused word these days. What the Allies did to Germany after Versailles was austerity, and everyone paid dearly for it.jilles dykstra , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 8:15 am GMTWhat the IMF and the Western Banking Cartel do to third world countries is akin to a pusher hopping up addicts on debt and then taking it away while stripping them of their assets, pretty much hurting only the people of the third world country; certainly not the WBC, and almost certainly not the criminal elite who took the deal.
The Austerity everyone complains about in the developed world these days is a joke, hardly austerity, for it has never meant more than doing a little less deficit-spending than in prior periods, e.g. UK Labour whining about "Austerity" is a joke, as the UK debt has done nothing but grow, which in terms understandable to simple folk like me means they are spending more than they can afford to carry.
" The immediate question facing Germany and the rest of Western Europe is how long they will sacrifice their trade and investment opportunities with Russia, Iran and other economies by adhering to U.S.-sponsored sanctions "jacques sheete , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 11:29 am GMTIn the whole article not a word about the euro, also an instrument of imperialism, that mainly benefits Germany, the country that has to maintain a high level of exports, in order to feed the Germans, and import raw materials for Germany's industries.
Isolating China and Russia, with the other BRICS countries, S Africa, Brazil, India, dangerous game.
This effort forced China and Russia to close cooperation, the economic expression of this is the Peking Petersburg railway, with a hub in Khazakstan, where the containers are lifted from the Chinese to the Russian system, the width differs.
Four days for the trip.
The Berlin Baghdad railway was an important cause for WWI.
Let us hope that history does not repeat itself in the nuclear era.Edward Mead Earle, Ph.D., 'Turkey, The Great Powers and The Bagdad Railway, A study in Imperialism', 1923, 1924, New York
Another excellent article.skrik , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 11:29 am GMTThe U.S. response has been to extend the new Cold War into the financial sector, rewriting the rules of international finance to benefit the United States and its satellites – and to deter countries from seeking t o break free from America's financial free ride .
Nah, the NY banksters wouldn't dream of doing such a thing; would they?
jacques sheete , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 12:04 pm GMTThis is not how the Enlightenment was supposed to evolve
What I said, and beautifully put, the whole article.
World War I may well have been an important way-point, but the miserable mercantile modus operandi was well established long before.
An interesting A/B case:
a) wiki/Anglo-Persian Oil Company "In 1901 William Knox D'Arcy, a millionaire London socialite, negotiated an oil concession with Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar of Persia. He financed this with capital he had made from his shares in the highly profitable Mount Morgan mine in Queensland, Australia. D'Arcy assumed exclusive rights to prospect for oil for 60 years in a vast tract of territory including most of Iran. In exchange the Shah received £20,000 (£2.0 million today),[1] an equal amount in shares of D'Arcy's company, and a promise of 16% of future profits." Note the 16% = ~1/6, the rest going off-shore.
b) The Greens in Aus researched the resources sector in Aus, to find that it is 83% 'owned' by off-shore entities. Note that 83% = ~5/6, which goes off-shore. Coincidence?
Then see what happened when the erstwhile APOC was nationalized; the US/UK perpetrated a coup against the democratically elected Mossadegh, eventual blow-back resulting in the 1979 revolution, basically taking Iran out of 'the West.'
Note that in Aus, the democratically elected so-called 'leaders' not only allow exactly this sort of economic rape, they actively assist it by, say, crippling the central bank and pleading for FDI = selling our, we the people's interests, out. Those traitor-leaders are reversing 'Enlightenment' provisions, privatising whatever they can and, as Michael Hudson well points out the principles, running Aus into debt and austerity.
We the people are powerless passengers, and to add insult to injury, the taxpayer-funded AusBC lies to us continually. Ho, hum; just like the mainly US/Z MSM and the BBC do – all corrupt and venal. Bah!
Now, cue the trolls: "But Russia/China are worse!"
Biff , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 12:39 pm GMTThe immediate question facing Germany and the rest of Western Europe is how long they will sacrifice their trade and investment opportunities with Russia, Iran and other economies by adhering to U.S.-sponsored sanctions.
US banking oligarchs will expend the last drop of our blood to prevent a such a linking, just as they were willing to sacrifice our blood and treasure in WW1 and 2, as is alluded to here.:
Today's global financial crisis can be traced back to World War I and its aftermath.
Excellent.:
The principle that needed to be voiced was the right of sovereign nations not to be forced to sacrifice their economic survival on the altar of inter-government and private debt demands Without a global alternative to letting debt dynamics polarize societies and tear economies apart, monetary imperialism by creditor nations is inevitable.
This is a gem of a summary.:
The past century's global fracture between creditor and debtor economies has interrupted what seemed to be Europe's democratic destiny to empower governments to override financial and other rentier interests. Instead, the West is following U.S. diplomatic leadership back into the age when these interests ruled governments. This conflict between creditors and democracy, between oligarchy and economic growth (and indeed, survival) will remain the defining issue of our epoch over the next generation, and probably for the remainder of the 21st century.
Instead, the West is following U.S. diplomatic leadership back into the age when these interests ruled governments. It's important to note that such interests have ruled (owned, actually) imperial Britain for centuries and the US since its inception, and the anti-federalists knew it.
Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain.
You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies [ ed comment: the money grubbers ]
Patrick Henry June 5 and 7, 1788―1788-1789 Petersburg, Virginia edition of the Debates and other Proceedings . . . Of the Virginia Convention of 1788
The Constitution had been laid down under unacceptable auspices; its history had been that of a coup d'état.
It had been drafted, in the first place, by men representing special economic interests. Four-fifths of them were public creditors, one-third were land speculators, and one-fifth represented interests in shipping, manufacturing, and merchandising. Most of them were lawyers. Not one of them represented the interest of production -- Vilescit origine tali.
- Albert Jay Nock [Excerpted from chapter 5 of Albert Jay Nock's Jefferson, published in 1926]
The golden rule is one thing. The paper rule is something else. May you live in interesting times.Jake , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 2:09 pm GMT"After World War I the U.S. Government deviated from what had been traditional European policy – forgiving military support costs among the victors. U.S. officials demanded payment for the arms shipped to its Allies in the years before America entered the Great War in 1917. The Allies turned to Germany for reparations to pay these debts." The Yank banker, the Yankee Wall Street super rich, set off a process of greed that led to Hitler.Joe Hide , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 2:12 pm GMTBut they didn't invent anything. They learned from their WASP forebears in the British Empire, whose banking back to Oliver Cromwell had become inextricably entangled with Jewish money and Jewish interests to the point that Jews per capita dominated it even at the height of the British Empire, when simpleton WASPs assume that WASPs truly ran everything, and that WASP power was for the good of even the poorest WASPs.
To Michael Hudson,The Alarmist , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 2:13 pm GMT
Great article. Evidence based, factually argued, enjoyably readable.
Replacements for the dollar dominated financial system are well into development. Digital dollars, credit cards, paypal, stock and currency exchange online platforms, and perhaps most intriguing The exponential rise of Bitcoin and similar crypto-currencies.The internet is also exponentially exposing the screwing we peasants have been getting by the psychopath, narcissistic, hedonistic, predatory lenders and controllers. Next comes the widespread, easily usable, and inexpensive cell phone apps, social media exposures, alternative websites (like Unz.com), and other technologies that will quickly identify every lying, evil, jerk so they can be neutrilized / avoided
Astuteobservor II , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 2:26 pm GMT"Textbook trade theory depicts trade and investment as helping poorer countries catch up, compelling them to survive by becoming more democratic to overcome their vested interests and oligarchies along the lines pioneered by European and North American industrial economies."
I must be old; the economic textbooks I had did explain the benefits of freer trade among nations using Ricardo and Trade Indifference Curves, but didn't prescribe any one political system being fostered by or even necessary for the benefits of international trade to be reaped.
to be honest, this way of running things only need to last for 10-20 more years before automation will replace 800 million jobs. then we will have a few trillionaire overlords unless true AI comes online. by that point nothing matters as we will become zoo animals.jacques sheete , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 2:36 pm GMT@The Alarmistjacques sheete , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 2:48 pm GMTWhat the IMF and the Western Banking Cartel do to third world countries is akin to a pusher hopping up addicts on debt and then taking it away while stripping them of their assets, pretty much hurting only the people of the third world country; certainly not the WBC, and almost certainly not the criminal elite who took the deal.
That's true and the criminals do similar asset stripping to their own as well, through various means.
It's always the big criminals against the rest of us.
@jilles dykstrajacques sheete , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 2:51 pm GMTThe Berlin Baghdad railway was an important cause for WWI.
Bingo. Stopping it was a huge factor. There was no way the banksters of the world were going to let that go forward, nor were they going to let Germany and Russia link up in any other ways. They certainly were not about to allow any threats to the Suez Canal nor any chance to let the oil fields slip from their control either.
The wars were also instigated to prevent either Germany or Russia having control of, and free access to warm water ports and the wars also were an excuse to steal vast amounts of wealth from both Germany and Russia through various means.
All pious and pompous pretexts aside, economics was the motive for (the) war (s), and the issues are not settled to this day. I.e., it's the same class of monstrously insatiable criminals who want everything for themselves who're causing the major troubles of the day.
Unfortunately, as long as we have SoB's who're eager to sacrifice our blood and treasure for their benfit, things will never change.
Michael Kenny , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 3:01 pm GMTThe golden rule is one thing. The paper rule is something else.
May you live in interesting times.
The golden rule is for dreamers, unfortunately. Those who control paper money rule, and your wish has been granted; we live in times that are both interesting and fascinating, but are nevertheless the same old thing. Only the particular particulars have changed.
Essentially, the anti-EU and anti-euro line that Professor Hudson has being pushing for years, which has now morphed into a pro-Putin line as the anti-EU faction in the US have sought to use Putin as a "useful idiot" to destroy the EU. Since nobody in Europe reads these articles, Ii doesn't really matter and I certainly don't see any EU leader following the advice of someone who has never concealed his hostility to the EU's very existence: note the use of the racist slur "PIIGS" to refer to certain EU Member States. Thus, Professor Hudson is simply pushing the "let Putin win in Ukraine" line dressed up in fine-sounding economic jargon.jacques sheete , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 3:54 pm GMTAnonymous , Disclaimer Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 4:08 pm GMTSince nobody in Europe reads these articles, Ii doesn't really matter
None of it rally matters anyway, no matter how valid. To paraphrase Thucydides, the money grubbers do what they want and the rest of us are forced to suck it up and limp along.
and I certainly don't see any EU leader following the advice
I doubt that that's Hudson's intent in writing the article. I see it as his attempt to explain the situation to those of us who care about them even though our concern is pretty much useless.
I do thank him for taking the time to pen this stuff which I consider worthwhile and high quality.
That sounds good but social media is the weapon of choice in the EU too. Lot's of kids know and love Hudson. Any half capable writer who empathetically explains why you're getting fucked is going to have some followers. Watering, nutrition, weeding. Before too long you'll be on the Eurail to your destination.Wally , Website Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 4:23 pm GMT@Jakenickels , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 4:48 pm GMTsaid: "The Yank banker, the Yankee Wall Street super rich, set off a process of greed that led to Hitler." If true, so what? That's a classic example of 'garbage in, garbage out'. http://www.codoh.com
William McAdoo , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 5:08 pm GMTThis is not how the Enlightenment was supposed to evolve
In fact, this is exactly how it was supposed to work. The wave of liberal democracies was precisely to overturn the monarchies, which were the last bulwark protecting the people from the full tyranny of the financiers, who were, by nature, one-world internationalists.
The real problem with this is that any form of monetary arrangement involves an implied trusteeship, with obligations on, as well as benefits for, the trustee. The US is so abusing its trusteeship through the continual use of an irresponsible sanctions regime that it risks a good portion of the world economy abandoning its system for someone else's, which may be perceived to be run more responsibility. The disaster scenario would be the US having therefore in the future to access that other system to purchase oil or minerals, and having that system do to us what we previously did to them -- sanction us out.joe webb , Next New Comment November 30, 2017 at 10:11 pm GMTThe proper use by the US of its controlled system thus should be a defensive one -- mainly to act so fairly to all players that it, not someone else, remains in control of the dominant worldwide exchange system. This sensible course of conduct, unfortunately, is not being pursued by the US.
there is fuzzy, and then there is very fuzzy, and then there is the fuzziness compounded many-fold. The latter is this article.Wally, Next New Comment December 1, 2017 at 1:49 am GMTHere from wiki: "
" Marx believed that capitalism was inherently built upon practices of usury and thus inevitably leading to the separation of society into two classes: one composed of those who produce value and the other, which feeds upon the first one. In "Theories of Surplus Value" (written 1862-1863), he states " that interest (in contrast to industrial profit) and rent (that is the form of landed property created by capitalist production itself) are superfetations (i.e., excessive accumulations) which are not essential to capitalist production and of which it can rid itself."
Wiki goes on to identify "rentier" as used by Marx, to be the same thing as "capitalists." What the above quotation says is that capitalism CAN rid itself of genuine rent capital. First, the feudal rents that were extracted by landowners were NOT part of a free market system. Serfdom was only one part of unfree conditions. A general condition of anarchy in rules and laws by petty principalities characteristic of feudalism, both contained commerce and human beings. There was no freedom, political or economic.
The conflation (collapsing) of rents and interest is a Marxist error which expands into complete nonsense when a competitive economy has replaced feudal conditions. ON top of that, profits from a business, firm, or industrial enterprise are NOT rents.
Any marxist is a fool to pretend otherwise, and is just another ideological (False consciousness ) fanatic.
... ... ...
@Michael KennyThreeCranes , December 1, 2017 at 3:34 am GMTIndeed, Putin should be praised & supported. But where is the proof that 'Russia & Trump colluded to get Trump elected'? You also ignore the overwhelming Crimean support for returning to Russia. And you won't like this at all: Trump Declares "National Day for the Victims of Communism." https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/11/07/national-day-victims-communism Hence, the Liars of the scamming "Holocau$t Industry" go crazy: https://www.salon.com/2017/11/07/trumps-national-day-for-the-victims-of-communism-is-opposite-of-holocaust-statement/
@jilles dykstraGermany loans money back to the poorer nations who buy her exports just as China loans money to the United States (they purchase roughly a third of our Treasury bonds) so that Americans can continue to buy Chinese manufactured goods.
The role to be played by the USA in the "new world order" is that of being the farmer to the world. The meticulous Asians will make stuff.
The problem with this is that it is based on 19th century notions of manufacturing. Technique today is vastly more complicated than it was in the 1820′s and a nation must do everything in its power to protect and nurture its manufacturing and scientific excellence. In the United States we have been giving this away to our competitors. We educate their children at our taxpayer's expense and they take the knowledge gained back to their native countries where, with state subsidies, they build factories that put Americans out of work. We fall further and further behind.
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Nov 28, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
How Washington's chronic deceit -- especially towards Russia -- has sabotaged U.S. foreign policy.
For any country, the foundation of successful diplomacy is a reputation for credibility and reliability. Governments are wary of concluding agreements with a negotiating partner that violates existing commitments and has a record of duplicity. Recent U.S. administrations have ignored that principle, and their actions have backfired majorly, damaging American foreign policy in the process.
The consequences of previous deceit are most evident in the ongoing effort to achieve a diplomatic solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis. During his recent trip to East Asia, President Trump urged Kim Jong-un's regime to "come to the negotiating table" and "do the right thing" -- relinquish the country's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. Presumably, that concession would lead to a lifting (or at least an easing) of international economic sanctions and a more normal relationship between Pyongyang and the international community.
Unfortunately, North Korean leaders have abundant reasons to be wary of such U.S. enticements. Trump's transparent attempt to renege on Washington's commitment to the deal with Iran known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- which the United States and other major powers signed in 2015 to curb Tehran's nuclear program -- certainly does not increase Pyongyang's incentive to sign a similar agreement. His decision to decertify Iran's compliance with the JCPOA, even when the United Nations confirms that Tehran is adhering to its obligations, appears more than a little disingenuous.
North Korea is likely focused on another incident that raises even greater doubts about U.S. credibility. Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi capitulated on the nuclear issue in December of 2003, abandoning his country's nuclear program and reiterating a commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In exchange, the United States and its allies lifted economic sanctions and welcomed Libya back into the community of respectable nations. Barely seven years later, though, Washington and its NATO partners double-crossed Qaddafi, launching airstrikes and cruise missile attacks to assist rebels in their campaign to overthrow the Libyan strongman. North Korea and other powers took notice of Qaddafi's fate, making the already difficult task of getting a de-nuclearization agreement with Pyongyang nearly impossible.
The Libya intervention sullied America's reputation in another way. Washington and its NATO allies prevailed on the UN Security Council to pass a resolution endorsing a military intervention to protect innocent civilians. Russia and China refrained from vetoing that resolution after Washington's assurances that military action would be limited in scope and solely for humanitarian purposes. Once the assault began, it quickly became evident that the resolution was merely a fig leaf for another U.S.-led regime-change war.
Beijing, and especially Moscow, understandably felt duped. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates succinctly described Russia's reaction, both short-term and long-term:
The Russians later firmly believed they had been deceived on Libya. They had been persuaded to abstain at the UN on the grounds that the resolution provided for a humanitarian mission to prevent the slaughter of civilians. Yet as the list of bombing targets steadily grew, it became obvious that very few targets were off-limits, and that NATO was intent on getting rid of Qaddafi. Convinced they had been tricked, the Russians would subsequently block any such future resolutions, including against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
The Libya episode was hardly the first time the Russians concluded that U.S. leaders had cynically misled them . Moscow asserts that when East Germany unraveled in 1990, both U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and West German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher offered verbal assurances that, if Russia accepted a unified Germany within NATO, the alliance would not expand beyond Germany's eastern border. The official U.S. position that there was nothing in writing affirming such a limitation is correct -- and the clarity, extent, and duration of any verbal commitment to refrain from enlargement are certainly matters of intense controversy . But invoking a "you didn't get it in writing" dodge does not inspire another government's trust.
There seems to be no limit to Washington's desire to crowd Russia. NATO has even added the Baltic republics, which had been part of the Soviet Union itself. In early 2008, President George W. Bush unsuccessfully tried to admit Georgia and Ukraine, which would have engineered yet another alliance move eastward. By that time, Vladimir Putin and other Russian leaders were beyond furious.
The timing of Bush's attempted ploy could scarcely have been worse. It came on the heels of Russia's resentment at another example of U.S. duplicity. In 1999, Moscow had reluctantly accepted a UN mandate to cover NATO's military intervention against Serbia, a long-standing Russian client. The alliance airstrikes and subsequent moves to detach and occupy Serbia's restless province of Kosovo for the ostensible reason of protecting innocent civilians from atrocities was the same "humanitarian" justification that the West would use subsequently in Libya.
Nine years after the initial Kosovo intervention, the United States adopted an evasive policy move, showing utter contempt for Russia's wishes and interests in the process. Kosovo wanted to declare its formal independence from Serbia, but it was clear that such a move would face a certain Russian (and probable Chinese) veto in the UN Security Council. Washington and an ad-hoc coalition of European Union countries brazenly bypassed the Council and approved Pristina's independence declaration. It was an extremely controversial move. Not even all EU members were on board with the policy, since some of them (e.g., Spain) had secessionist problems of their own.
Russia's leaders protested vehemently and warned that the West's unauthorized action established a dangerous, destabilizing international precedent. Washington rebuffed their complaints, arguing that the Kosovo situation was unique. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns made that point explicitly in a February 2008 State Department briefing. Both the illogic and the hubris of that position were breathtaking.
It is painful for any American to admit that the United States has acquired a well-deserved reputation for duplicity in its foreign policy. But the evidence for that proposition is quite substantial. Indeed, disingenuous U.S. behavior regarding NATO expansion and the resolution of Kosovo's political status may be the single most important factor for the poisoned bilateral relationship with Moscow. The U.S. track record of duplicity and betrayal is one reason why prospects for resolving the North Korean nuclear issue through diplomacy are so bleak.
Actions have consequences, and Washington's reputation for disingenuous behavior has complicated America's own foreign policy objectives. This is a textbook example of a great power shooting itself in the foot.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of 10 books, the contributing editor of 10 books, and the author of more than 700 articles and policy studies on international affairs.
Magdi , says: November 28, 2017 at 5:46 am
you are dead ON! I have been saying this since IRAQHerbert Heebert , says: November 28, 2017 at 7:47 am
fiasco (not one Iraqi onboard on 9/11) we should have invaded egypt and saudi arabia. how the foolish american public(sheep) just buys the american propaganda is beyond me.. don't blame the Russians one spittle!!A few points:Viriato , says: November 28, 2017 at 9:25 am1. I think North Korea might also be looking at the example of Ukraine, and Russia's clear violation of the Budapest Memorandum.
2. It's silly to put so much weight on Baker's verbal assurance re: NATO expansion.
3. I would suggest Mr. Carpenter make a list of Russia's betrayals. But I have the impression he is not interested.
Excellent piece. The US really has destroyed its credibility over the years.craigsummers , says: November 28, 2017 at 10:09 amThis points Ted Galen Carpenter makes in this piece go a long way toward explaining Russia's destabilizing behavior in recent years.
One point in particular jumped out at me:
"Kosovo wanted to declare its formal independence from Serbia, but it was clear that such a move would face a certain Russian (and probable Chinese) veto in the UN Security Council. Washington and an ad-hoc coalition of European Union countries brazenly bypassed the Council and approved Pristina's independence declaration. It was an extremely controversial move. Not even all EU members were on board with the policy, since some of them (e.g., Spain) had secessionist problems of their own. Russia's leaders protested vehemently and warned that the West's unauthorized action established a dangerous, destabilizing international precedent. Washington rebuffed their complaints, arguing that the Kosovo situation was unique."
This -- in the context of the long history of US and EU deceit and duplicity in their dealings with Russia is why Russia is supporting Catalan separatism (e.g. RT en Español's constant attacks on Spain and promotion of the separatists). The US and the EU effectively gave Russia permission to do this back in the 1990s. We set a precedent for their actions in Catalonia -- and, more famously, in Ukraine.
This
Mr. CarpenterDOD , says: November 28, 2017 at 10:23 amYou have made a reasonable case that the US and Europe have not always been reliable, but the expansion of NATO is not one of them. No one forced any eastern European country to join NATO and the EU – decisions that indicate these countries feared a Russian revival after the collapse of the USSR. Russia always believed that these countries were in their near abroad or backyard.
The idea of a "sphere of influence" is a cold war relic which Russia invoked with the Medvedev Doctrine in 2008. This is currently on display in Ukraine. Russia is aggressively denying Ukraine their sovereignty. Who could possibly blame former Soviet Block countries for hightailing it to NATO during a lull in Russian aggression?
One could scarcely ask for a better summary of why the Cold War seems, sadly, to be reheating as well as why Democratic attempts to blame it on Russian meddling are a equally sad evasion of their share of bipartisan responsibility for creating this mess. Reinhold Niebuhr's prayer for, "the courage to change the things I can," is painfully appropriate.Michael Kenny , says: November 28, 2017 at 12:12 pmThe whole weakness of the author's argument is a classic American one: very few Americans seem to be able to get their heads around the fact that the Soviet Union ceased to exist 26 years ago! They are still totally locked into their cold war mentality. He thus unquestioningly accepts Putin's pre-1789 "sphere of influence" theory in which there are "superior" and "inferior" races, with only the superior races being entitled to have a sovereign state and the inferior races being forced to submit to being ruled by foreigners. Mr Carpenter really needs to put his cold war mentality aside and come into the 21st century!Will Harrington , says: November 28, 2017 at 12:58 pmMost seriously of all, Mr Carpenter offers no solution for improving relations between the US and Russia. Saying that past US actions were wrong, even if true, says nothing about the present and offers nothing for the future. At best, Mr Carpenter's article is empty moralising.
And the unspoken, but perfectly obvious, subtext, namely that the US should "atone for its sins" by capitulating to Putin, is morally reprehensible and politically unrealistic. Since, by Mr Carpenter's own account, the problem is caused by US wrongdoing, isn't it for the US to put things right (for example, by getting Putin out of Ukraine) and not simply make a mess in someone else's country and then run for home with its tail between its legs? Who gave Americans the right to give away other people's countries?
Herbert HeevertWill Harrington , says: November 28, 2017 at 1:15 pmThe one problem with your argument if, you are an american as I am, is that Russia is not acting in our names. If the US government, supposedly a government of, by, and for the people breaks its word, then you and I are foresworn oathbreakers as well because the government is (theoretically, at least) acting on OUR authority.
Craig SummersNoldorElf , says: November 28, 2017 at 1:31 pmReally?! "Russia always believed that these countries were in their near abroad or backyard."
I think that if you look at a map or a globe, you will find that this is not a belief but a fact. How you could overlook this, I don't know.
"The idea of a "sphere of influence" is a cold war relic "
If you are going to try and use history to influence opinion, it is best to check your facts. This is a very old concept.What do you think the Great Game between Imperial Russia and the British Empire in Central Asia was about? For that matter, what we call the Byzantine Commonwealth was a clearly attempt by the Romaoi to establish a political, cultural, and religious sphere of influence to support the power of the Empire, much as the United States has been doing over the past several decades.
You could make the case that Iraq too in 2003 is another reason why the Russians and the North Koreans distrust the US.Jeeves , says: November 28, 2017 at 1:42 pmAt this point, it is fairly certain that the Bush Administration knew that Saddam was not building nuclear weapons of mass destruction, which is what Bush strongly implied in his ramp up to the war.
One other takeaway that the North Koreans mag have from the 2003 Iraq invasion is that the US will lie any way to get what it wants.
Not saying that Russia or North Korea are perfect. Far from it. But the US needs to take a hard look in the mirror.
What Craigsummers said.SteveM , says: November 28, 2017 at 1:49 pmAnd, Mr. Carpenter, when you have time off from your job as Russian apologist, learn the meaning of "verbal." It's not a synonym for "oral."
Re: craigsummers, "No one forced any eastern European country to join NATO and the EU – decisions that indicate these countries feared a Russian revival after the collapse of the USSR. Russia always believed that these countries were in their near abroad or backyard."b. , says: November 28, 2017 at 2:33 pmExcept both here and abroad, the Global Cop Elites in Washington shape the strategy space through propaganda, fear-mongering and subversion. Moreover, the Eastern European countries are happy to join NATO when it's the American taxpayers who foot a large percentage of the bill.
Standard U.S. MO: create the threat, inflate the threat, send in the War Machine at massive cost to sustain the threat.
Rather than being broadened, NATO should have been ratcheted back after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the U.S. military presence in Europe massively reduced. Then normalized relations between Europe and Russia would have been designed and developed by Europe and Russia. Not the 800 pound Gorilla Global Cop that is good at little more than breaking things. (And perversely, after flushing TRILLIONS of tax dollars down the toilet, duping Americans to wildly applaud the "Warrior-Heroes" for a job well done.)
The 2008 war between Georgia and Russia was, per observers at the time, in Russian word and thought directly linked to the Balkan 's precedent.Janek , says: November 28, 2017 at 2:45 pmThe subtext here – of nation states, sovereignty, separatism and secessionist movements – is even more relevant with respect to US-China relationships. Since WW2 and that brief, transient monopoly on nuclear weapons, US foreign policy has eroded the Peace of Westphalia while attempting to erect an "international order" of convenience on top if it.
Both China and Russia know that nothing will stop the expansionism of US "national interests". In response to the doctrinal aspirations of the Soviets, the US has committed itself to an ideology that is just a greedy and relentless. In retrospect, it is hard to tell how many decades ago the Cold War stopped being about opposition to Soviet ideology, and instead became about "projecting" – in every sense of the word – an equally globalist US ideology.
We are the redcoats now. Now wonder the neocons and neolibs are shouting "Russia!" at every opportunity.
I am amazed how many masochistic conservatives are in USA conservative circles especially in the CATO institute. Mr. T. G. Carpenter, as is clear from not only this and other articles, is a staunch defender of Yalta and proponent of Yalta 2 after the Cold War ended. As far as I remember Libya was the hatchet job of the Europeans especially the French and British. B. Obama at first didn't want to attack Libya but gave in after lobbying by the French, British and the neoliberal/neo-conservative lobby and supporters of the Arab Spring in the USA. America lost credibility after and only since the conservatives neoliberals and neocons manipulated USA and the West's foreign politics for thirty plus years. USA is still a democratic country so it is easy to blame everything on the US. In today's Putin's Russia similar critics of the Russian politics wouldn't be so "easy".SteveM , says: November 28, 2017 at 2:45 pmThe Central Europe doesn't want Russia's sphere of influence precisely because of centuries of Russian occupation and atrocities in there especially after WW2, brutal and bloody invasion of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Cuban Crisis, Afghanistan, Chechnya etc. Now you have infiltration by Russia of the American electoral process and political system and some conservatives still can't connect the dots and see what is going on. I wonder why the western conservatives and US in particular are such great supporters of Russia. If Russia should be allowed to keep her sphere of influence after the Cold War then what was the reason to fight the Cold War in the first place. Wouldn't it be easier to surrender to Russia right after WW2.
One other observation about Russia that should be made but isn't is that the Russia-phobes can't point to an actual motive for Russian military aggression. There is no "Putin Plan" for conquest and domination by Russia like in Das Kapital or Hitler's Mein Kampf . What strategic value would Russia see from overrunning Poland and then having to perpetually suppress 35 million resistors? Or retaking the Baltic states that have only minority ethnic Russian populations?Mark , says: November 28, 2017 at 3:00 pmPutin is a rationally calculating man. He has made his strategic objectives well known. They are economic. He sees Russia as the great linchpin of the pan-Eurasian One Belt/One Road (OB/OR) initiative proposed by China as well as the AIIB. In that construct, Europe and East Asia are Russia's customers and bilateral trading partners. Military conquest would wreck that vision and Putin knows it.
In the gangster movies, a mob boss often says that he hates bloodshed because it's bad for business. That's Putin. He's been remarkably restrained when egged on by Big Mouth Nikki Haley, Mad Dog Mattis or that other Pentagon nutcase Phillip Breedlove (former Supreme Commander of NATO) who have gone out of their way to demonize Russia. Unfortunately, with those Pentagon hacks whispering in Trump's ear, too much war-mongering is never enough.
U.S. foreign policy is an unmitigated disaster. The War Machine Hammer wrecks everything that it touches while sending the befuddled taxpayers the bill.
"And, Mr. Carpenter, when you have time off from your job as Russian apologist, learn the meaning of "verbal." It's not a synonym for "oral."I imagine you thought you were being funny; and you were, just not in the way you foresaw. In fact, verbal is a synonym for oral; to wit, "spoken rather than written; oral. "a verbal agreement". Synonyms: oral, spoken, stated, said, verbalized, expressed."
Of course anyone who attempts to portray the United States as duplicitous and sneaky (those are synonyms!)is immediately branded a "Russian apologist". As if there are certain countries which automatically have no rights, and can be assumed to be lying every time they speak. Except they're not, and the verbal agreement that NATO would not advance further east in exchange for Russian cooperation has been acknowledged by western principals who were present.
As SteveM implies, NATO's reason for being evaporated with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, and was dead as a dodo with the breakup of the Soviet Union. Everything since has been a rationalization for keeping it going, including regular demonizations of imaginary enemies until they become real enemies. You can't just 'join NATO' because it's the in-crowd, you know. No, there are actually criteria, one of which is the premise that your acceptance materially enhances the security of the alliance. Pretty comical imagining Montenegro in that context, isn't it?
When you meet individual Americans, they are frequently so nice and level-headed that you are perplexed trying to imagine where their leaders come from. And while we're on that subject, America does not actually have a foreign policy, as such. Its foreign policy is to bend every other living soul on the planet to the service of America.
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Oct 03, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org
The answer to the question in the title of this article is that Russiagate was created by CIA director John Brennan.The CIA started what is called Russiagate in order to prevent Trump from being able to normalize relations with Russia. The CIA and the military/security complex need an enemy in order to justify their huge budgets and unaccountable power. Russia has been assigned that role. The Democrats joined in as a way of attacking Trump. They hoped to have him tarnished as cooperating with Russia to steal the presidential election from Hillary and to have him impeached. I don't think the Democrats have considered the consequence of further worsening the relations between the US and Russia.
Public Russia bashing pre-dates Trump. It has been going on privately in neoconservative circles for years, but appeared publicly during the Obama regime when Russia blocked Washington's plans to invade Syria and to bomb Iran.
Russia bashing became more intense when Washington's coup in Ukraine failed to deliver Crimea. Washington had intended for the new Ukrainian regime to evict the Russians from their naval base on the Black Sea. This goal was frustrated when Crimea voted to rejoin Russia.
The neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony requires the principal goal of US foreign policy to be to prevent the rise of other countries that can serve as a restraint on US unilateralism. This is the main basis for the hostility of US foreign policy toward Russia, and of course there also is the material interests of the military/security complex.
Russia bashing is much larger than merely Russiagate. The danger lies in Washington convincing Russia that Washington is planning a surprise attack on Russia. With US and NATO bases on Russia's borders, efforts to arm Ukraine and to include Ukraine and Georgia in NATO provide more evidence that Washington is surrounding Russia for attack. There is nothing more reckless and irresponsible than convincing a nuclear power that you are going to attack.
Washington is fully aware that there was no Russian interference in the presidential election or in the state elections. The military/security complex, the neoconservatives, and the Democratic Party are merely using the accusations to serve their own agendas.
These selfish agendas are a dire threat to life on earth.
Reprinted with permission from PaulCraigRoberts.org .
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Oct 29, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org
A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict.
And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview constitutes a high level "public admission to collusion and coordination between four countries to destabilize an independent state, [including] possible support for Nusra/al-Qaeda." Importantly, "this admission will help build case for what Damascus sees as an attack on its security & sovereignty. It will form basis for compensation claims."
A 2013 London press conference: Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. A 2014 Hillary Clinton email confirmed Qatar as a state-sponsor of ISIS during that same time period.
As the war in Syria continues slowly winding down, it seems new source material comes out on an almost a weekly basis in the form of testimonials of top officials involved in destabilizing Syria, and even occasional leaked emails and documents which further detail covert regime change operations against the Assad government. Though much of this content serves to confirm what has already long been known by those who have never accepted the simplistic propaganda which has dominated mainstream media, details continue to fall in place, providing future historians with a clearer picture of the true nature of the war.
This process of clarity has been aided - as predicted - by the continued infighting among Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) former allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar, with each side accusing the other of funding Islamic State and al-Qaeda terrorists (ironically, both true). Increasingly, the world watches as more dirty laundry is aired and the GCC implodes after years of nearly all the gulf monarchies funding jihadist movements in places like Syria, Iraq, and Libya.
The top Qatari official is no less than former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, who oversaw Syria operations on behalf of Qatar until 2013 (also as foreign minister), and is seen below with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in this Jan. 2010 photo (as a reminder, Qatar's 2022 World Cup Committee donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation in 2014 ).
In an interview with Qatari TV Wednesday, bin Jaber al-Thani revealed that his country, alongside Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States, began shipping weapons to jihadists from the very moment events "first started" (in 2011).
Al-Thani even likened the covert operation to "hunting prey" - the prey being President Assad and his supporters - "prey" which he admits got away (as Assad is still in power; he used a Gulf Arabic dialect word, "al-sayda", which implies hunting animals or prey for sport). Though Thani denied credible allegations of support for ISIS, the former prime minister's words implied direct Gulf and US support for al-Qaeda in Syria (al-Nusra Front) from the earliest years of the war, and even said Qatar has "full documents" and records proving that the war was planned to effect regime change.
According to Zero Hedge's translation, al-Thani said while acknowledging Gulf nations were arming jihadists in Syria with the approval and support of US and Turkey: "I don't want to go into details but we have full documents about us taking charge [in Syria]." He claimed that both Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah (who reigned until his death in 2015) and the United States placed Qatar in a lead role concerning covert operations to execute the proxy war.
The former prime minister's comments, while very revealing, were intended as a defense and excuse of Qatar's support for terrorism, and as a critique of the US and Saudi Arabia for essentially leaving Qatar "holding the bag" in terms of the war against Assad. Al-Thani explained that Qatar continued its financing of armed insurgents in Syria while other countries eventually wound down large-scale support, which is why he lashed out at the US and the Saudis, who initially "were with us in the same trench."
In a previous US television interview which was vastly underreported, al-Thani told Charlie Rose when asked about allegations of Qatar's support for terrorism that, "in Syria, everybody did mistakes, including your country." And said that when the war began in Syria, "all of us worked through two operation rooms: one in Jordan and one in Turkey."
Here is the key section of Wednesday's interview , translated and subtitled by @Walid970721. Zero Hedge has reviewed and confirmed the translation, however, as the original rush translator has acknowledged , al-Thani doesn't say "lady" but "prey" ["al-sayda"]- as in both Assad and Syrians were being hunted by the outside countries.
The partial English transcript is as follows:
When the events first started in Syria I went to Saudi Arabia and met with King Abdullah. I did that on the instructions of his highness the prince, my father. He [Abdullah] said we are behind you. You go ahead with this plan and we will coordinate but you should be in charge. I won't get into details but we have full documents and anything that was sent [to Syria] would go to Turkey and was in coordination with the US forces and everything was distributed via the Turks and the US forces. And us and everyone else was involved, the military people. There may have been mistakes and support was given to the wrong faction... Maybe there was a relationship with Nusra, its possible but I myself don't know about this we were fighting over the prey ["al-sayda"] and now the prey is gone and we are still fighting... and now Bashar is still there. You [US and Saudi Arabia] were with us in the same trench... I have no objection to one changing if he finds that he was wrong, but at least inform your partner for example leave Bashar [al-Assad] or do this or that, but the situation that has been created now will never allow any progress in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], or any progress on anything if we continue to openly fight.As is now well-known, the CIA was directly involved in leading regime change efforts in Syria with allied gulf partners, as leaked and declassified US intelligence memos confirm . The US government understood in real time that Gulf and West-supplied advanced weaponry was going to al-Qaeda and ISIS, despite official claims of arming so-called "moderate" rebels. For example, a leaked 2014 intelligence memo sent to Hillary Clinton acknowledged Qatari and Saudi support for ISIS.The email stated in direct and unambiguous language that:
the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.Furthermore, one day before Prime Minister Thani's interview, The Intercept released a new top-secret NSA document unearthed from leaked intelligence files provided by Edward Snowden which show in stunning clarity that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the war which has now claimed half a million lives.The newly released NSA document confirms that a 2013 insurgent attack with advanced surface-to-surface rockets upon civilian areas of Damascus, including Damascus International Airport, was directly supplied and commanded by Saudi Arabia with full prior awareness of US intelligence. As the former Qatari prime minister now also confirms, both the Saudis and US government staffed "operations rooms" overseeing such heinous attacks during the time period of the 2013 Damascus airport attack.
No doubt there remains a massive trove of damning documentary evidence which will continue to trickle out in the coming months and years. At the very least, the continuing Qatari-Saudi diplomatic war will bear more fruit as each side builds a case against the other with charges of supporting terrorism. And as we can see from this latest Qatari TV interview, the United States itself will not be spared in this new open season of airing dirty laundry as old allies turn on each other.
Reprinted with permission from ZeroHedge .
Related
- The Airwaves Are Still Heaving With Spin Two Days After US Airstrikes Against Syria - 26 September 2014
- The Real Status of Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq - 5 October 2014
- Presidents and the War Power - 8 October 2014
- The Siege Of Kobani: Obama's Syrian Fiasco In Motion - 6 October 2014
- Is Obama Misleading the World to War? Depends How You Define 'Misleading' - 26 September 2014
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Oct 20, 2017 | www.unz.com
Back in October of 2016, I wrote a somewhat divisive essay in which I suggested that political dissent is being systematically pathologized. In fact, this process has been ongoing for decades, but it has been significantly accelerated since the Brexit referendum and the Rise of Trump (or, rather, the Fall of Hillary Clinton, as it was Americans' lack of enthusiasm for eight more years of corporatocracy with a sugar coating of identity politics, and not their enthusiasm for Trump, that mostly put the clown in office.)
In the twelve months since I wrote that piece, we have been subjected to a concerted campaign of corporate media propaganda for which there is no historical precedent. Virtually every major organ of the Western media apparatus (the most powerful propaganda machine in the annals of powerful propaganda machines) has been relentlessly churning out variations on a new official ideological narrative designed to generate and enforce conformity. The gist of this propaganda campaign is that "Western democracy" is under attack by a confederacy of Russians and white supremacists, as well as "the terrorists" and other "extremists" it's been under attack by for the last sixteen years.
I've been writing about this campaign for a year now, so I'm not going to rehash all the details. Suffice to say we've gone from Russian operatives hacking the American elections to "Russia-linked" persons "apparently" setting up "illegitimate" Facebook accounts, "likely operated out of Russia," and publishing ads that are "indistinguishable from legitimate political speech" on the Internet. This is what the corporate media is presenting as evidence of "an unprecedented foreign invasion of American democracy," a handful of political ads on Facebook. In addition to the Russian hacker propaganda, since August, we have also been treated to relentless white supremacist hysteria and daily reminders from the corporate media that "white nationalism is destroying the West." The negligible American neo-Nazi subculture has been blown up into a biblical Behemoth inexorably slouching its way towards the White House to officially launch the Trumpian Reich.
At the same time, government and corporate entities have been aggressively restricting (and in many cases eliminating) fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of assembly, the right to privacy, and the right to due process under the law. The justification for this curtailment of rights (which started in earnest in 2001, following the September 11 attacks) is protecting the public from the threat of "terrorism," which apparently shows no signs of abating. As of now, the United States has been in a State of Emergency for over sixteen years. The UK is in a virtual State of Emergency . France is now in the process of enshrining its permanent State of Emergency into law. Draconian counter-terrorism measures have been implemented throughout the EU . Not just the notorious American police but police throughout the West have been militarized . Every other day we learn of some new emergency security measure designed to keep us safe from "the terrorists," the "lone wolf shooters," and other "extremists."
Conveniently, since the Brexit referendum and unexpected election of Trump (which is when the capitalist ruling classes first recognized that they had a widespread nationalist backlash on their hands), the definition of "terrorism" (or, more broadly, "extremism") has been expanded to include not just Al Qaeda, or ISIS, or whoever we're calling "the terrorists" these days, but anyone else the ruling classes decide they need to label "extremists." The FBI has designated Black Lives Matter "Black Identity Extremists." The FBI and the DHS have designated Antifa "domestic terrorists."
Hosting corporations have shut down several white supremacist and neo-Nazi websites , along with their access to online fundraising. Google is algorithmically burying leftist news and opinion sources such as Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News, and Truthout, among others. Twitter, Facebook, and Google have teamed up to cleanse the Internet of "extremist content," "hate speech," and whatever else they arbitrarily decide is inappropriate. YouTube, with assistance from the ADL (which deems pro-Palestinian activists and other critics of Israel "extremists") is censoring "extremist" and "controversial" videos , in an effort to "fight terrorist content online." Facebook is also collaborating with Israel to thwart "extremism," "incitement of violence," and whatever else Israel decides is "inflammatory."
In the UK, simply reading "terrorist content" is punishable by fifteen years in prison. Over three thousand people were arrested last year for publishing "offensive" and "menacing" material.
Whatever your opinion of these organizations and "extremist" persons is beside the point. I'm not a big fan of neo-Nazis, personally, but neither am I a fan of Antifa. I don't have much use for conspiracy theories, or a lot of the nonsense one finds on the Internet, but I consume a fair amount of alternative media, and I publish in CounterPunch, The Unz Review, ColdType, and other non-corporate journals.
I consider myself a leftist, basically, but my political essays are often reposted by right-wing and, yes, even pro-Russia blogs. I get mail from former Sanders supporters, Trump supporters, anarchists, socialists, former 1960s radicals, anti-Semites, and other human beings, some of whom I passionately agree with, others of whom I passionately disagree with. As far as I can tell from the emails, none of these readers voted for Clinton, or Macron, or supported the TPP, or the debt-enslavement and looting of Greece, or the ongoing restructuring of the Greater Middle East (and all the lovely knock-on effects that has brought us), or believe that Trump is a Russian operative, or that Obama is Martin Luther Jesus-on-a-stick.
What they share, despite their opposing views, is a general awareness that the locus of power in our post-Cold War age is primarily corporate, or global capitalist, and neoliberal in nature. They also recognize that they are being subjected to a massive propaganda campaign designed to lump them all together (again, despite their opposing views) into an intentionally vague and undefinable category comprising anyone and everyone, everywhere, opposing the hegemony of global capitalism, and its non-ideological ideology (the nature of which I'll get into in a moment).
As I wrote in that essay a year ago, "a line is being drawn in the ideological sand." This line cuts across both Left and Right, dividing what the capitalist ruling classes designate "normal" from what they label "extremist." The traditional ideological paradigm, Left versus Right, is disappearing (except as a kind of minstrel show), and is being replaced, or overwritten, by a pathological paradigm based upon the concept of "extremism."
* * *
Although the term has been around since the Fifth Century BC, the concept of "extremism" as we know it today developed in the late Twentieth Century and has come into vogue in the last three decades. During the Cold War, the preferred exonymics were "subversive," "radical," or just plain old "communist," all of which terms referred to an actual ideological adversary.
In the early 1990s, as the U.S.S.R. disintegrated, and globalized Western capitalism became the unrivaled global-hegemonic ideological system that it is today, a new concept was needed to represent the official enemy and its ideology. The concept of "extremism" does that perfectly, as it connotes, not an external enemy with a definable ideological goal, but rather, a deviation from the norm. The nature of the deviation (e.g., right-wing, left-wing, faith-based, and so on) is secondary, almost incidental. The deviation itself is the point. The "terrorist," the "extremist," the "white supremacist," the "religious fanatic," the "violent anarchist" these figures are not rational actors whose ideas we need to intellectually engage with in order to debate or debunk. They are pathological deviations, mutant cells within the body of "normality," which we need to identify and eliminate, not for ideological reasons, but purely in order to maintain "security."
A truly global-hegemonic system like contemporary global capitalism (the first of this kind in human history), technically, has no ideology. "Normality" is its ideology an ideology which erases itself and substitutes the concept of what's "normal," or, in other words, "just the way it is." The specific characteristics of "normality," although not quite arbitrary, are ever-changing. In the West, for example, thirty years ago, smoking was normal. Now, it's abnormal. Being gay was abnormal. Now, it's normal. Being transgender is becoming normal, although we're still in the early stages of the process. Racism has become abnormal. Body hair is currently abnormal. Walking down the street in a semi-fugue state robotically thumbing the screen of a smartphone that you just finished thumbing a minute ago is "normal." Capitalism has no qualms with these constant revisions to what is considered normal, because none of them are threats to capitalism. On the contrary, as far as values are concerned, the more flexible and commodifiable the better.
See, despite what intersectionalists will tell you, capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic values (though it has no problem working with these values when they serve its broader strategic purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system. It only has one fundamental value, exchange value, which isn't much of a value, at least not in terms of organizing society or maintaining any sort of human culture or reverence for the natural world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything, everyone, every object and sentient being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what the market will bear no more, no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value.
Yes, we all want there to be other values, and we pretend there are, but there aren't, not really. Although we're free to enjoy parochial subcultures based on alternative values (i.e., religious bodies, the arts, and so on), these subcultures operate within capitalist society, and ultimately conform to its rules. In the arts, for example, works are either commercial products, like any other commodity, or they are subsidized by what could be called "the simulated aristocracy," the ivy league-educated leisure classes (and lower class artists aspiring thereto) who need to pretend that they still have "culture" in order to feel superior to the masses. In the latter case, this feeling of superiority is the upscale product being sold. In the former, it is entertainment, distraction from the depressing realities of living, not in a society at all, but in a marketplace with no real human values. (In the absence of any real cultural values, there is no qualitative difference between Gerhard Richter and Adam Sandler, for example. They're both successful capitalist artists. They're just selling their products in different markets.)
The fact that it has no human values is the evil genius of global capitalist society. Unlike the despotic societies it replaced, it has no allegiance to any cultural identities, or traditions, or anything other than money. It can accommodate any form of government, as long as it plays ball with global capitalism. Thus, the window dressing of "normality" is markedly different from country to country, but the essence of "normality" remains the same. Even in countries with state religions (like Iran) or state ideologies (like China), the governments play by the rules of global capitalism like everyone else. If they don't, they can expect to receive a visit from global capitalism's Regime Change Department (i.e., the US military and its assorted partners).
Which is why, despite the "Russiagate" hysteria the media have been barraging us with, the West is not going to war with Russia. Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed countries, whose economies are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies. The economies of every developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature of the global hegemony I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global capitalist hegemony. Systemic, supranational hegemony (which I like to prefer "the Corporatocracy," as it sounds more poetic and less post-structural).
We haven't really got our minds around it yet, because we're still in the early stages of it, but we have entered an epoch in which historical events are primarily being driven, and societies reshaped, not by sovereign nation states acting in their national interests but by supranational corporations acting in their corporate interests. Paramount among these corporate interests is the maintenance and expansion of global capitalism, and the elimination of any impediments thereto. Forget about the United States (i.e., the actual nation state) for a moment, and look at what's been happening since the early 1990s. The US military's "disastrous misadventures" in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, and the former Yugoslavia, among other exotic places (which have obviously had nothing to do with the welfare or security of any actual Americans), begin to make a lot more sense.
Global capitalism, since the end of the Cold War (i.e, immediately after the end of the Cold War), has been conducting a global clean-up operation, eliminating actual and potential insurgencies, mostly in the Middle East, but also in its Western markets. Having won the last ideological war, like any other victorious force, it has been "clear-and-holding" the conquered territory, which in this case happens to be the whole planet. Just for fun, get out a map, and look at the history of invasions, bombings, and other "interventions" conducted by the West and its assorted client states since 1990. Also, once you're done with that, consider how, over the last fifteen years, most Western societies have been militarized, their citizens placed under constant surveillance, and an overall atmosphere of "emergency" fostered, and paranoia about "the threat of extremism" propagated by the corporate media.
I'm not suggesting there's a bunch of capitalists sitting around in a room somewhere in their shiny black top hats planning all of this. I'm talking about systemic development, which is a little more complex than that, and much more difficult to intelligently discuss because we're used to perceiving historico-political events in the context of competing nation states, rather than competing ideological systems or non-competing ideological systems, for capitalism has no competition . What it has, instead, is a variety of insurgencies, the faith-based Islamic fundamentalist insurgency and the neo-nationalist insurgency chief among them. There will certainly be others throughout the near future as global capitalism consolidates control and restructures societies according to its values. None of these insurgencies will be successful.
Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know, violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its ruthless interests. The world will become increasingly "normal." The scourge of "extremism" and "terrorism" will persist, as will the general atmosphere of "emergency." There will be no more Trumps, Brexit referendums, revolts against the banks, and so on. Identity politics will continue to flourish, providing a forum for leftist activist types (and others with an unhealthy interest in politics), who otherwise might become a nuisance, but any and all forms of actual dissent from global capitalist ideology will be systematically marginalized and pathologized.
This won't happen right away, of course. Things are liable to get ugly first (as if they weren't ugly enough already), but probably not in the way we're expecting, or being trained to expect by the corporate media. Look, I'll give you a dollar if it turns out I'm wrong, and the Russians, terrorists, white supremacists, and other "extremists" do bring down "democracy" and launch their Islamic, white supremacist, Russo-Nazi Reich, or whatever, but from where I sit it looks pretty clear tomorrow belongs to the Corporatocracy.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Malla , October 20, 2017 at 12:56 pm GMT
Brilliant Article. But this has been going on for nearly a century or more. New York Jewish bankers fund the Bolshevik revolution which gets rid of the Romanov dynasty and many of the revolutionaries are not even Russian. What many people do not know is that many Western companies invested money in Bolshevik Russia as the Bolsheviks were speeding up the modernising of the country. What many do not know is that Feminism, destruction of families and traditional societies, homoerotic art etc . was forced on the new Soviet population in a shock therapy sort of way. The same process has been implemented in the West by the elites using a much slower 'boiling the frog' method using Cultural Marxism. The aim of the Soviet Union was to spread Communism around the World and hence bring about the One World Government as wished by the globalists. Their national anthem was the 'Internationale'. The globalists were funding revolutionary movements throughout Europe and other parts of the world. One such attempt went extremely wrong and that was in Germany where instead of the Communists coming in power, the National Socialists come in power which was the most dangerous challenge faced by the Zio/globalists/elite gang. The Globalists force a war using false flag events like Pearl Harbour etc and crushed the powers which challenged their rule i.e. Germany, Japan and Italy. That is why Capitalist USA funded Communist Soviet Union using the land lease program, which on the surface never makes any sense.Seamus Padraig , October 20, 2017 at 5:13 pm GMTHowever in Soviet Russia, a power struggle leads to Stalin destroying the old Communist order of Lenin Trotsky. Trotsky and his supporters leave the Soviet Union. Many of the present Neo Cons are ex Trotskyites and hence the crazy hatred for Russia even today in American politics. These Neocons do not have any principles, they will use any ideology such as Communism, Islam, twisted Western Conservatism anything to attain their global goals.
Now with Stalin coming to power, things actually improved and the war with Hitler's Third Reich gave Stalin the chance to purge many old school globalist commies and then the Soviet Union went towards a more nationalist road. Jews slowly started losing their hold on power with Russians and eventually other Soviets gaining more powerful positions. These folks found the ugly modern art culture of the early Soviet period revolting and started a new movement where the messages of Socialism can be delivered with more healthy beautiful art and culture. This process was called 'Social Realism'. So strangely what happened was that the Capitalist Christian West was becoming more and more less traditional with time (Cultural Marxism/Fabien Socialism via media, education, Hollywood) while the Eastern block was slowly moving in an opposite direction. The CIA (which is basically the intelligence agency arm of Wall Street Bankers) was working to stop this 'Social Realism' movement.
These same globalists also funded Mao and pulled the rug under Chiang Kai Shek who they were supporting earlier. Yes, Mao was funded by the Rockerfeller/ Rothschild Cabal. Now, even if the Globalists were not happy with Stalin gaining power in the Soviet Union (they preferred the internationalist Trotskyites), they still found that they could work out with the Soviet Union. That is why during the 2nd World war, the USA supports the USSR with money and material, Stalin gets a facelift as 'friendly Uncle Joe' for the Western audience. Many Cossack families who had escaped the Soviet Union to the West were sent to their deaths after the War to the Soviet Union. Why? Mr. Eden of Britain who could not stand Hitler wanted a New World Order where they could work with the more murderous Soviet Union.
Now we have the cold war. What is not known is that behind the scenes at a higher level, the Americans and the Soviets cooperated with each other exchanging technology, basically the cold war was quite fake. But the Cold war gave the American government (basically the Globalists) to take American Tax payers hard earned money to fund many projects such as Star Wars programme etc All this was not needed, as a gentleman named Keenan had shown in his book that all the Americans needed to do was to make sure Japan, Germany and Britain did not fall to the Soviets, that's it. Thus trillions of American tax payer money would be saved. But obviously the Military Industrial Complex did not like that idea. Both the Soviet and the American governments got the excuse spend their people's hard money on weapons research as well as exchanging some of that technology in the back ground. It is during this period that the precursor to the Internet was already developed. Many of the technology we use today was already invented much earlier by government agencies but released to the people later.
Then we have the Vietnam war. Now you must realise that the Globalist government of America uses wars not only to change enemy societies but also the domestic society in the West. So during the Vietnam War, the US government using the alphabet agencies such as the CIA kick start the fake opposition hippie movements. The CIA not only drugged the Vietnamese population using drugs from the Golden Triangle but later released them on the home population in the USA and the West. This was all part of the Cultural Marxist plan to change or social engineer American/ Western society. Many institutes like the Travestock Institute were part of this process. For example one of the main hochos of the Cultural Marxism, a Mr. Aderno was closely related to the Beatles movement.
Several experiments was done on mind control such as MK Ultra, monarch programming, Edward Bernay's works etc Their aim was to destroy traditional Western society and the long term goal is a New World Order. Blacks for example were used as weapons against Whites at the same time the black social order was destroyed further via the media etc
Now, Nixon going to China was to start a long term (long planned) process to bring about Corporate Communism. Yes that is going to be economic system in the coming New World Order. China is the test tube, where the Worst of Communism and the Worst of Crony Capitalism be brought together as an experiment. As the Soviet Union was going in a direction, the globalist was not happy about (it was becoming more nationalist), they worked to bring the Soviet Union down and thus the Soviet experiment ended only to be continued in China.
NATO today is the core military arm of the globalists, a precursor to a One World Military Force. That explains why after the Warsaw pact was dismantled, NATO was not or why NATO would interfere in the Middle East which is far away from the Atlantic Ocean.
The coming Cashless society will finally lead to a moneyless or distribution society, in other words Communism, that is the long term plan.
My point is, many of the geo political events as well as social movements of the last century (feminism for example) were all planned for a long time and are not accidents. The coming technologies like the internet of things, 5G technology, Cashless society, biometric identification everywhere etc are all designed to help bring about the final aim of the globalists. The final aim is a one world government with Corporate ruled Communism where we, the worker bees will be living in our shitty inner city like ghetto homes eating GM plastic foods and listening to crappy music. That is the future they have planned for us. A inner city ghetto like place under Communism ruled by greedy evil corporates.
Once again, C.J. nails it!Issac , October 21, 2017 at 1:52 am GMT"Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know, violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its ruthless interests."peterAUS , October 21, 2017 at 9:25 pm GMTThat is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting proles. They've painted themselves into a corner with non-white identity politics combined with mass immigration. The logical conclusion of where they're going is pogroms and none of the kleptocracy seem bold enough to try and stop this from happening.
@IssacWizard of Oz , October 25, 2017 at 4:32 am GMTThat is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting proles.
Agree.
@MallaedNels , October 25, 2017 at 4:46 am GMTThere must be some evidence for your assertions about the long term plans and aims of globalists and others if there is truth in them. The sort of people you are referring to would often have kept private diaries and certainly written many hundreds or thousands of letters. Can you give any references to such evidence of say 80 to 130 years ago?
Finally an article that tells as it is! and the first comment is a great one too. It is right there to see for anybody with eyes screwed in right.wayfarer , October 25, 2017 at 5:16 am GMT"Three Things Cannot Be Long Hidden: the Sun, the Moon, and the Truth." – BuddhaThereisaGod , October 25, 2017 at 5:54 am GMTRegarding Trump being "a clown" the jury is out:jilles dykstra , October 25, 2017 at 7:35 am GMThttp://www.voltairenet.org/article198481.html
.. puzzling that the writer feels the need to virtue-signal by saying he "doesn't have much time for conspiracy theories" while condemning an absolutely massive conspiracy to present establishment lies as truth.
That is one of the most depressing demonstrations of the success of the ruling creeps that I have yet come across.
Germany is the last EU member state where an anti EU party entered parliament. In the last French elections four out of every ten voters voted on anti EU parties. In Austria the anti EU parties now have a majority. So if I were leading a big corporation, thriving by globalism, what also the EU is, I would be worried.animalogic , October 25, 2017 at 7:36 am GMT"See, despite what intersectionalists will tell you, capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic values (though it has no problem working with these values when they serve its broader strategic purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system. It only has one fundamental value, exchange value, which isn't much of a value, at least not in terms of organizing society or maintaining any sort of human culture or reverence for the natural world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything, everyone, every object and sentient being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what the market will bear no more, no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value."jilles dykstra , October 25, 2017 at 7:36 am GMTThis is a great article. The author's identification of "normality" & "extremism" as Capitalism's go-to concepts for social control is spot on accurate. That these terms can mean anything or nothing & are infinitely flexible is central to their power.
Mr Hopkins is also correct when he points out that Capitalism has essentially NO values (exchange value is a value, but also a mechanism). Again, Capitalism stands for nothing: any form of government is acceptable as long as it bows to neoliberal markets.
However, the author probably goes to far:
"Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed countries, whose economies are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies. The economies of every developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature of the global hegemony I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global capitalist hegemony. Systemic, supranational hegemony".
Capitalism has no values: however the Masters of the capitalist system most certainly do: Capitalism is a means, the most thorough, profound means yet invented, for the attainment of that value which has NO exchange value: POWER.
Capitalism is a supranational hegemony – yet the Elites which control it, who will act as one when presented with any external threats to Capitalism itself, are not unified internally. Indeed, they will engage in cut throat competition, whether considered as individuals or nations or as particular industries.
US Imperialism is not imaginary, it is not a mere appearance or mirage of Capitalism, supranational or not. US Imperialism in essence empowers certain sets of Capitalists over other sets. No, they may not purposely endanger the System as a whole, however, that still leaves plenty of space for aggressive competition, up to & including war.
Imperialism is the political corollary to the ultimate economic goal of the individual Capitalist: Monopoly.
@Mallam___ , October 25, 2017 at 9:00 am GMTRead Howard Zinn, and discover that the USA always was the same since Columbus began.
Psychologically daring (being no minstrel to corporatocracy nor irrelevant activism and other "religions" that endorse the current world global system as the overhead), rationally correct, relevant, core definition of the larger geo-world and deeper "ideological" grounding( in the case of capitalism the quite shallow brute forcing of greed as an incentive, as sterile a society as possible), and adhering to longer timelines of reality of planet earth. Perfectly captures the "essence" of the dynamics of our times.Hans Vogel , October 25, 2017 at 9:24 am GMTThe few come to the authors' through-sites by many venue-ways, that's where some of the corporocratic world, by sheer statistics wind up also. Why do they not get the overhand into molding the shallow into anything better in the long haul. No world leader, no intellectual within power circles, even within confined quarters, speaks to the absurdity of the ongoing slugging and maltering of global human?
The elites of now are too dumb to consider the planet exo-human as a limited resource. Immigration, migration, is the de facto path to "normalization" in the terms of the author. Reducing the world population is not "in" the capitalist ideology. A major weakness, or if one prefers the stake that pinches the concept of capitalism: more instead of quality principles.
The game changers, the possible game changers: eugenics and how they play out as to the elites ( understanding the genome and manipulating it), artificial intelligence ( defining it first, not the "Elon Musk" definition), and as a far outlier exo-planetary arguments.
Confront the above with the "unexpected", the not-human engineered possible events (astroids and the like, secondary effects of human induced toxicity, others), and the chances to get to the author's "dollar" and what it by then might mean is indeed tiny.
As to the content, one of the utmost relevant articles, it is "art" to condense such broad a world view into a few words, it requires a deep understanding foremost, left to wonder what can be grasped by most reading above. Some-one try the numbers?, "big data" anyone, they might turn out in favor of what the author undoubtedly absorbed as the nucleus of twenty-first thinking, strategy and engineering.
This kind of thinking and "Harvard" conventionality, what a distance.
Great article, spot on. Indeed we are all at the mercy now of a relatively small clique of ruthless criminals who are served by armies of desensitized, stupid mercenaries: MBAs, politicians, thugs, college professors, "whorenalists", etc. I am afraid that the best answer to the current and future dystopia is what the Germans call "innere Emigration," to psychologically detach oneself from the contemporary world.m___ , October 25, 2017 at 9:28 am GMTThus, the only way out of this hellhole is through reading and thinking, which every self-respecting individual should engage in. Shun most contemporary "literature" and instead turn to the classics of European culture: there you will find all you need.
For an earlier and ever so pertinent analysis of the contemporary desert, I can heartily recommend Umberto Galimberti's I vizi capitali e i nuovi vizi (Milan, 2003).
@Mallajacques sheete , October 25, 2017 at 11:12 am GMTAnd yes, another verbally strong expression of the in your face truth, though for so few to grasp. The author again has a deep understanding, if one prefers, it points to the venueway of coming to terms, the empirical pathway as to the understanding.
"Plasticky" society is my preferred term for designating the aberrance that most (within the elites), the rest who cares (as an historical truth), do not seem to identify as proper cluelessness in the light of longer timelines. The current global ideology, religion of capitalism-democracy is the equivalent of opportunistic naval staring of the elites. They are not aware that suffocation will irreversibly affect oneself. Not enough air is the equivalent of no air in the end.
Jake , October 25, 2017 at 11:28 am GMTThe negligible American neo-Nazi subculture has been blown up into a biblical Behemoth inexorably slouching its way towards the White House to officially launch the Trumpian Reich.
While the above is true, I hope most folks understand that the basic concept of controlling people through fear is nothing new. The much vaunted constitution was crammed down our collective throats by the rich scoundrels of the time in the words of more than one anti-federalist through the conjuring of quite a set of threats, all bogus.
I address my most fervent prayer to prevent our adopting a system destructive to liberty We are told there are dangers, but those dangers are ideal; they cannot be demonstrated.
- Patrick Henry, Foreign Wars, Civil Wars, and Indian Wars -- Three Bugbears, June 5, 7, and 9, 1788
Bottom line: Concentrated wealth and power suck.The USA was ruled by a plutoligarchy from its inception, and the material benefits we still enjoy have occurred not because of it but despite it.
It is the nightmare world of Network come to life.jacques sheete , October 25, 2017 at 12:29 pm GMTFor today's goofy "right wing" big business "conservatives" who think the US won WW2, I got news for you. Monopoly capitalism, complete with increasing centralization of the economy and political forces were given boosts by both world wars.jacques sheete , October 25, 2017 at 12:37 pm GMTIt was precisely in reaction to their impending defeat at the hands of the competitive storms of the market tha t business turned, increasingly after the 1900′s, to the federal government for aid and protection. In short, the intervention by the federal government was designed, not to curb big business monopoly for the sake of the public weal, but to create monopolies that big business (as well as trade associations smaller business) had not been able to establish amidst the competitive gales of the free market. Both Left and Right have been persistently misled by the notion that intervention by the government is ipso facto leftish and anti-business. Hence the mythology of the New-Fair Deal-as-Red that is endemic on the Right. Both the big businessmen, led by the Morgan interests, and Professor Kolko almost uniquely in the academic world, have realized that monopoly privilege can only be created by the State and not as a result of free market operations.
-Murray N. Rothbard, Rothbard Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty, [Originally appeared in Left and Right, Spring 1965, pp. 4-22.]
Malla , October 25, 2017 at 1:58 pm GMTA truly global-hegemonic system like contemporary global capitalism (the first of this kind in human history), technically, has no ideology.
Please change that to" contemporary state-sponsored global capitalism
@Wizard of OzMiro23 , October 25, 2017 at 2:18 pm GMTIt was all about connecting the dots really. Connecting the dots of too many books I have gobe through and videos I have seen. Too many to list here.
You can get a lot of info from the book 'Tragedy and Hope' by Carroll Quigley though he avoids mantioning Jews and calls it the Anglo American establishment, Anthony Sutton however I completely disagree about funding of the Third Reich but he does talk a lot about the secret relationship between the USA and the USSR, Revilo Oliver etc.. etc Well you could read the Protocols. Now if you think that the protocols was a forgery, you gotta see this, especially the last part.
Also check this out
Also check out what this Wall Street guy realised in his career.
Also this 911 firefighter, what he found out after some research
jacques sheete , October 25, 2017 at 2:21 pm GMTCapitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system. It only has one fundamental value, exchange value, which isn't much of a value, at least not in terms of organizing society or maintaining any sort of human culture or reverence for the natural world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything, everyone, every object and sentient being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what the market will bear no more, no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value.
This looks like the "financialization" of society with Citizens morphing into Consumers.
And it's worth saying that Citizenship and Consumership are completely different concepts:
Citizenship – Dictionary.com
1. – the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen.
2. – the character of an individual viewed as a member of society;behavior in terms of the duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen:
an award for good citizenship.
The Consumer – Dictionary.com
1. a person or thing that consumes.
2. Economics. a person or organization that uses a commodity or service.
A good citizen can then define themselves in a rather non-selfish, non-financial way as for example, someone who respects others, contributes to local decisions (politically active), gains respect through work and ethical standards etc.
A good consumer on the other hand, seems to be more a self-idea, essentially someone who buys and consumes a lot (financial idea), has little political interest – and probably defines themselves (and others) by how they spend money and what they own.
It's clear that US, and global capitalism, prefers active consumers over active citizens, and maybe it explains why the US has such a worthless and dysfunctional political process.
daniel le mouche , October 25, 2017 at 2:23 pm GMTIt was all about connecting the dots really.
Some folks are completely unable to connect the dots even when spoon fed the evidence. You'll note that some, in risible displays of quasi-intellectual arrogance, make virtually impossible demands for proof, none of which they'll ever accept. Rather, they flock to self aggrandizing mythology like flies to fresh sewage which the plutoligarchy produces nearly infinitely.
Your observations appear pretty accurate and self justifying I'd say.
@Wizard of Ozdaniel le mouche , October 25, 2017 at 2:49 pm GMTI can, Wiz.
Look up the film director Aaron Russo (recently deceased), discussing how David Rockefeller tried to bring him over to the dark side. Rockefeller discussed for example the women's movement, its engineering. Also, there's Aldous Huxley's speech The Ultimate Revolution, on how drugs are the final solution to rabble troubles–we will think we're happy even in the most appalling societal conditions.
@jilles dykstrajoe webb , October 25, 2017 at 4:17 pm GMTI can only say Beware of Zinn, best friend of Chomsky, endlessly tauted by shysters like Amy Goodman and Counterpunch. Like all liberal gatekeepers, he wouldn't touch 911. I saw him speak not long before he died, and when questioned on this he said, 'That was a long time ago, let's talk about now.'
This from a professed historian, and it was only 7 years after 911. He seemed to have the same old Jewish agenda, make Europeans look really bad at all times. He was always on message, like the shyster Chomsky. Sincerely probing for the truth was not part of his agenda; his truths were highly selective, and such a colossal event as 911 concerned him not at all, with the ensuing wars, Patriot Acts, bullshit war on Terror, etc etc
Say what???Wally , Website October 25, 2017 at 4:24 pm GMT" capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic values (though it has no problem working with these values when they serve its broader strategic purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system."
This is a typical Left Lie. Capitalism in its present internationalist phase absolutely requires Anti-Racism to lubricate sales uh, internationally and domestically. We are all Equal.
Then, the ticking-off of the rest of the bad isms, and labeling them 'despotic' is another Leftwing and poetic attack on more or less all of us white folks, who have largely invented Capitalism, from a racialist point of view.
"Poetic" because it is an emotional appeal, not a rational argument. The other 'despotisms' are not despotic, unless you claim, like I do that racial personalities are more, or less despotic, with Whites being the least despotic. The Left totalitarian thinks emotional despotism's source is political or statist. It are not. However, Capitalism has been far less despotic than communism, etc.
Emotional Despotism is part of who Homo Sapiens is, and this emotional despotism is not racially equal. Whites are the least despotic, and have organized law and rules to contain such despotism.
Systems arise naturally from the Human Condition, like it or not. The attempt here is to sully the Capitalist system, and that is all it is. This article itself is despotic propaganda.
Arguably, human nature is despotic, and White civilization has attempted to limit our despotic nature.
This is another story.
As for elevating capitalism into a 'social system' .this is somewhat true. However, that is not totally bad, as capitalism delivers the goods, which is the first thing, after getting out of bed.
The second thing, is having a conformable social environment, and that is where racial accord enters.
People want familiar and trustworthy people around them and that is just the way human nature is genetic similarity, etc.
Beyond that, the various Leftie complaints-without-end, are also just the way it is. And yes they can be addressed and ameliorated to some degree, but human nature is not a System to be manipulated, even thought the current crop of scientistic lefties talk a good storyline about epigenetics and other Hopes, false of course, like communist planning which makes its first priority, Social Change which is always despotic. Society takes care of itself, especially racial society.
As Senator Vail said about the 1924 Immigration Act which held the line against Immigration, "if there is going to be any changing being done, we will do it and nobody else." That 'we' was a White we.
Capitalism must be national. International capital is tyranny.
Joe Webb
@jacques sheeteWally , Website October 25, 2017 at 4:30 pm GMTBingo.
Some agendas require the "state sponsored" part to be hidden.
@Mallajacques sheete , October 25, 2017 at 5:12 pm GMT"How Big Oil Conquered the World"?
That's called 'taking the bait.'
US oil companies make about five cents off a single gallon of gasoline, on the other hand US Big Government taxes on a single gallon are around seventy-one cents for US states & rising, the tax is now $1.00 per gallon for CA.
IOW, greedy US governments make fourteen to twenty times what oil companies make, and it is the oil companies who make & deliver the vital product to the marketplace.
And that is just in the US. Have a look at Europe's taxes. My, my.
It's Big Government, not Big Oil.
@Wallyjilles dykstra , October 25, 2017 at 5:18 pm GMTSome agendas require the "state sponsored" part to be hidden.
That is part of the reason why the constitutional convention was held in secret as well.
The cunning connivers who ram government down our throats don't like their designs exposed, and it's an old trick which nearly always works.
Here's Aristophanes on the subject. His play is worth a read. Short and great satire on the politicians of the day.
SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the allies at will that you reckon; y ou wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist, that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the blessings you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with hatred and rage, he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only too well; it is for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.
- Aristophanes, The Knights, 424 BC
@daniel le mouchejilles dykstra , October 25, 2017 at 5:20 pm GMTThe first loyalty of jews is supposed to be to jews.
Norman Finkelstein is called a traitor by jews, the Dutch jew Hamburger is called a traitor by Dutch jews, he's the chairman of 'Een ander joodse geluid', best translated by 'another jewish opinion', the organisation criticises Israel.
Jewish involvement in Sept 11 seems probable, the 'dancing Israelis', the assertion that most jews working in the Twin Towers at the time were either sick or took a day off, the fact that the Towers were jewish property, ready for a costly demolition, much abestos in the buildings, thus the 'terrorist' act brought a great profit.
Can one expect a jew to expose things like this ?
On his book, I did not find inconsistencies with literature I already knew.
The merit of the book is listing many events that affected common people in the USA, and destroying the myth that 'in the USA who is poor has only himself to blame'.
This nonsense becomes clear even from the diaries of Harold L Ickes, or from Jonathan Raban Bad Land, 1997.
As for Zinn's criticism of the adored USA constitution, I read that Charles A Beard already in 1919 resigned because he also criticised this constitution.
@WallyIndeed, in our countries about half the national income goes to the governments by taxes, this is the reason a country like Denmark is the best country to live in.
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Oct 09, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The 'briefing' is just another exercise in preferred narrative boosting.
The co-chairmen of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a press briefing Thursday on the status of their ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the American electoral process. Content-wise, the press briefing and the question and answer session were an exercise in information futility -- they provided little substance and nothing new. The investigation was still ongoing, the senators explained, and there was still work to be done.
Nine months into the Committee's work, the best Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.), could offer was that there was "general consensus" among committee members and their staff that they trust the findings of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) of January 2017, which gave high confidence to the charge that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election. The issue of possible collusion between Russia and members of the campaign of Donald Trump, however, "is still open."
Frankly speaking, this isn't good enough.
The 2017 ICA on Russia was conceived in an atmosphere of despair and denial, birthed by Democrats and Republicans alike who were stunned by Trump's surprise electoral victory in November 2016. To say that this issue was a political event would be a gross understatement; the 2017 Russian ICA will go down in history as one of the most politicized intelligence documents ever, regardless of the degree of accuracy eventually afforded its contents. The very fact that the document is given the sobriquet "Intelligence Community" is itself a political act, designed to impart a degree of scrutiny and community consensus that simply did not exist when it came to the production of that document, or the classified reports that it was derived from.
This was a report prepared by handpicked analysts from three of the Intelligence Community's sixteen agencies (the CIA, NSA, and FBI) who operated outside of the National Intelligence Council (the venue for the production of Intelligence Community products such as the Russian ICA), and void of the direction and supervision of a dedicated National Intelligence Officer. Overcoming this deficient family tree represents a high hurdle, even before the issue of the credibility of the sources and methods used to underpin the ICA's findings are discussed. Given the firestorm of political intrigue and controversy initiated by the publication of this document, the notion of a "general consensus" regarding the level of trust imparted to it by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee does not engender confidence.
It was this document that spawned the issue of "collusion." While Sens. Burr and Warner can state that "collusion" is still an open issue, the fact of the matter is that, in this regard, Trump and his campaign advisors have already been found guilty in the court of public opinion, especially among those members of the public and the media who were vehemently opposed to his candidacy and ultimate victory. Insofar as the committee's investigation serves as a legitimate search for truth, it does so as a post-conviction appeal. However, as the distinguished Supreme Court Justice Joseph McKenna noted in his opinion in Berger v. United States (1921):
The remedy by appeal is inadequate. It comes after the trial, and, if prejudice exist, it has worked its evil and a judgment of it in a reviewing tribunal is precarious. It goes there fortified by presumptions, and nothing can be more elusive of estimate or decision than a disposition of a mind in which there is a personal ingredient.
One need only review the comments of the various Democratic members of the Senate Select Committee, their counterparts serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, as well as the various experts and pundits in the media, to underscore the degree to which prejudice has "worked its evil" when it comes to the issue of collusion and the Trump campaign in this regard.
The two senators proceeded to touch on a new angle recently introduced into their investigation, that of the purchase of advertisements on various social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, by the Russians or their proxies. With regard to these advertisements, Senator Burr painted a dire picture. "It seems," he declared, "that the overall theme of the Russian involvement in the US elections was to create chaos at every level."
No one wants to be told that they have been victims of a con; this is especially true when dealing with the sacred trust imparted to the American citizenry by the Constitution of the United States regarding the free and fair election of those who will represent us in higher office. American politics, for better or worse, is about the personal connection a given candidate has with the voter, a gut feeling that this person shares common values and beliefs.
Nevertheless, the percentage of Americans that participate in national elections is low. Those that do tend to be people who care enough about one or more issues to actually get out and vote. To categorize these dedicated citizens as brain-dead dupes who are susceptible to social media-based click advertisements is an insult to American democracy.
There is a world of difference between Russian intelligence services allegedly hacking politically sensitive emails and selectively releasing them for the sole purpose of undermining a given Presidential candidate's electoral prospects, and mimicking social media-based advertisements addressing issues that are already at play in an election. The Russians didn't invent the ongoing debate in the United States over gun control (i.e., the "Second Amendment" issue), race relations (the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri) or immigration ("The Wall").
These were, and remain, core issues that are at the heart of the American domestic political discourse, regardless of where one stands. You either know the issues, or you don't; it is an insult to the American voter to suggest that they are so malleable that $100,000 of targeted social media-based advertisements can swing their vote, even if 10 million of them viewed it.
The take away from the press briefing given by Senator's Burr and Warner was two-fold: One, the Russians meddled, and two, we don't know if Trump colluded with the Russians. The fact that America is nine months into this investigation with little more to show now than what could have been said at the start is, in and of itself, an American political tragedy. The Trump administration has been hobbled by the inertia of this and other investigations derived from the question of Russian meddling. That this process may yet vindicate President Trump isn't justification for the process itself; in such a case the delay will have hurt more than the truth. As William Penn, the founder of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, so eloquently noted:
Delays have been more injurious than direct Injustice. They too often starve those they dare not deny. The very Winner is made a Loser, because he pays twice for his own; like those who purchase Estates Mortgaged before to the full value.
Our law says that to delay Justice is Injustice. Not to have a Right, and not to come of it, differs little. Refuse or Dispatch is the Duty of a Good Officer.
Senators Burr and Warner, together with their fellow members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and their respective staffs, would do well to heed those words.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of "Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road to War" (Clarity Press, 2017).
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Oct 08, 2017 | www.unz.com
Autopilot Wars Sixteen Years, But Who's Counting?
Consider, if you will, these two indisputable facts. First, the United States is today more or less permanently engaged in hostilities in not one faraway place, but at least seven . Second, the vast majority of the American people could not care less.
Nor can it be said that we don't care because we don't know. True, government authorities withhold certain aspects of ongoing military operations or release only details that they find convenient. Yet information describing what U.S. forces are doing (and where) is readily available, even if buried in recent months by barrages of presidential tweets. Here, for anyone interested, are press releases issued by United States Central Command for just one recent week:
- September 19 : Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq
- September 20 : Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq
- Iraqi Security Forces begin Hawijah offensive
- September 21 : Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq
- September 22 : Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq
- September 23 : Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq
- Operation Inherent Resolve Casualty
- September 25 : Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq
- September 26 : Military airstrikes continue against ISIS terrorists in Syria and Iraq
Ever since the United States launched its war on terror, oceans of military press releases have poured forth. And those are just for starters. To provide updates on the U.S. military's various ongoing campaigns, generals, admirals, and high-ranking defense officials regularly testify before congressional committees or brief members of the press. From the field, journalists offer updates that fill in at least some of the details -- on civilian casualties, for example -- that government authorities prefer not to disclose. Contributors to newspaper op-ed pages and "experts" booked by network and cable TV news shows, including passels of retired military officers, provide analysis. Trailing behind come books and documentaries that put things in a broader perspective.
But here's the truth of it. None of it matters.
Like traffic jams or robocalls, war has fallen into the category of things that Americans may not welcome, but have learned to live with. In twenty-first-century America, war is not that big a deal.
While serving as defense secretary in the 1960s, Robert McNamara once mused that the "greatest contribution" of the Vietnam War might have been to make it possible for the United States "to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire." With regard to the conflict once widely referred to as McNamara's War, his claim proved grotesquely premature. Yet a half-century later, his wish has become reality.
Why do Americans today show so little interest in the wars waged in their name and at least nominally on their behalf? Why, as our wars drag on and on, doesn't the disparity between effort expended and benefits accrued arouse more than passing curiosity or mild expressions of dismay? Why, in short, don't we give a [ expletive deleted ]?
Perhaps just posing such a question propels us instantly into the realm of the unanswerable, like trying to figure out why people idolize Justin Bieber, shoot birds, or watch golf on television.
Without any expectation of actually piercing our collective ennui, let me take a stab at explaining why we don't give a @#$%&! Here are eight distinctive but mutually reinforcing explanations, offered in a sequence that begins with the blindingly obvious and ends with the more speculative.
Americans don't attend all that much to ongoing American wars because:
1. U.S. casualty rates are low . By using proxies and contractors, and relying heavily on airpower, America's war managers have been able to keep a tight lid on the number of U.S. troops being killed and wounded. In all of 2017, for example, a grand total of 11 American soldiers have been lost in Afghanistan -- about equal to the number of shooting deaths in Chicago over the course of a typical week. True, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries where the U.S. is engaged in hostilities, whether directly or indirectly, plenty of people who are not Americans are being killed and maimed. (The estimated number of Iraqi civilians killed this year alone exceeds 12,000 .) But those casualties have next to no political salience as far as the United States is concerned. As long as they don't impede U.S. military operations, they literally don't count (and generally aren't counted).
2. The true costs of Washington's wars go untabulated. In a famous speech , dating from early in his presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower said that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." Dollars spent on weaponry, Ike insisted, translated directly into schools, hospitals, homes, highways, and power plants that would go unbuilt. "This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense," he continued. "[I]t is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." More than six decades later, Americans have long since accommodated themselves to that cross of iron. Many actually see it as a boon, a source of corporate profits, jobs, and, of course, campaign contributions. As such, they avert their eyes from the opportunity costs of our never-ending wars. The dollars expended pursuant to our post-9/11 conflicts will ultimately number in the multi-trillions . Imagine the benefits of investing such sums in upgrading the nation's aging infrastructure . Yet don't count on Congressional leaders, other politicians, or just about anyone else to pursue that connection.
On matters related to war, American citizens have opted out. Others have made the point so frequently that it's the equivalent of hearing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" at Christmastime. Even so, it bears repeating: the American people have defined their obligation to "support the troops" in the narrowest imaginable terms , ensuring above all that such support requires absolutely no sacrifice on their part. Members of Congress abet this civic apathy, while also taking steps to insulate themselves from responsibility. In effect, citizens and their elected representatives in Washington agree: supporting the troops means deferring to the commander in chief, without inquiring about whether what he has the troops doing makes the slightest sense. Yes, we set down our beers long enough to applaud those in uniform and boo those who decline to participate in mandatory rituals of patriotism. What we don't do is demand anything remotely approximating actual accountability.
4. Terrorism gets hyped and hyped and hyped some more. While international terrorism isn't a trivial problem (and wasn't for decades before 9/11), it comes nowhere close to posing an existential threat to the United States. Indeed, other threats, notably the impact of climate change, constitute a far greater danger to the wellbeing of Americans. Worried about the safety of your children or grandchildren? The opioid epidemic constitutes an infinitely greater danger than "Islamic radicalism." Yet having been sold a bill of goods about a "war on terror" that is essential for "keeping America safe," mere citizens are easily persuaded that scattering U.S. troops throughout the Islamic world while dropping bombs on designated evildoers is helping win the former while guaranteeing the latter. To question that proposition becomes tantamount to suggesting that God might not have given Moses two stone tablets after all.
5. Blather crowds out substance. When it comes to foreign policy, American public discourse is -- not to put too fine a point on it -- vacuous, insipid, and mindlessly repetitive. William Safire of the New York Times once characterized American political rhetoric as BOMFOG, with those running for high office relentlessly touting the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. Ask a politician, Republican or Democrat, to expound on this country's role in the world, and then brace yourself for some variant of WOSFAD, as the speaker insists that it is incumbent upon the World's Only Superpower to spread Freedom and Democracy. Terms like leadership and indispensable are introduced, along with warnings about the dangers of isolationism and appeasement, embellished with ominous references to Munich . Such grandiose posturing makes it unnecessary to probe too deeply into the actual origins and purposes of American wars, past or present, or assess the likelihood of ongoing wars ending in some approximation of actual success. Cheerleading displaces serious thought.
6. Besides, we're too busy. Think of this as a corollary to point five. Even if the present-day American political scene included figures like Senators Robert La Follette or J. William Fulbright , who long ago warned against the dangers of militarizing U.S. policy, Americans may not retain a capacity to attend to such critiques. Responding to the demands of the Information Age is not, it turns out, conducive to deep reflection. We live in an era (so we are told) when frantic multitasking has become a sort of duty and when being overscheduled is almost obligatory. Our attention span shrinks and with it our time horizon. The matters we attend to are those that happened just hours or minutes ago. Yet like the great solar eclipse of 2017 -- hugely significant and instantly forgotten -- those matters will, within another few minutes or hours, be superseded by some other development that briefly captures our attention. As a result, a dwindling number of Americans -- those not compulsively checking Facebook pages and Twitter accounts -- have the time or inclination to ponder questions like: When will the Afghanistan War end? Why has it lasted almost 16 years? Why doesn't the finest fighting force in history actually win? Can't package an answer in 140 characters or a 30-second made-for-TV sound bite? Well, then, slowpoke, don't expect anyone to attend to what you have to say.
7. Anyway, the next president will save us. At regular intervals, Americans indulge in the fantasy that, if we just install the right person in the White House, all will be well. Ambitious politicians are quick to exploit this expectation. Presidential candidates struggle to differentiate themselves from their competitors, but all of them promise in one way or another to wipe the slate clean and Make America Great Again. Ignoring the historical record of promises broken or unfulfilled, and presidents who turn out not to be deities but flawed human beings, Americans -- members of the media above all -- pretend to take all this seriously. Campaigns become longer, more expensive, more circus-like, and ever less substantial. One might think that the election of Donald Trump would prompt a downward revision in the exalted expectations of presidents putting things right. Instead, especially in the anti-Trump camp, getting rid of Trump himself (Collusion! Corruption! Obstruction! Impeachment!) has become the overriding imperative, with little attention given to restoring the balance intended by the framers of the Constitution. The irony of Trump perpetuating wars that he once roundly criticized and then handing the conduct of those wars to generals devoid of ideas for ending them almost entirely escapes notice.
8. Our culturally progressive military has largely immunized itself from criticism. As recently as the 1990s, the U.S. military establishment aligned itself with the retrograde side of the culture wars. Who can forget the gays-in-the-military controversy that rocked Bill Clinton's administration during his first weeks in office, as senior military leaders publicly denounced their commander-in-chief? Those days are long gone. Culturally, the armed forces have moved left. Today, the services go out of their way to project an image of tolerance and a commitment to equality on all matters related to race, gender, and sexuality. So when President Trump announced his opposition to transgendered persons serving in the armed forces, tweeting that the military "cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail," senior officers politely but firmly disagreed and pushed back . Given the ascendency of cultural issues near the top of the U.S. political agenda, the military's embrace of diversity helps to insulate it from criticism and from being called to account for a less than sterling performance in waging wars. Put simply, critics who in an earlier day might have blasted military leaders for their inability to bring wars to a successful conclusion hold their fire. Having women graduate from Ranger School or command Marines in combat more than compensates for not winning.
A collective indifference to war has become an emblem of contemporary America. But don't expect your neighbors down the street or the editors of the New York Times to lose any sleep over that fact. Even to notice it would require them -- and us -- to care.
Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular , is the author, most recently, of America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History .
Dan Hayes > , October 9, 2017 at 2:30 am GMT
Carlton Meyer > , Website October 9, 2017 at 5:17 am GMTYou have enumerated ten general reasons why Americans "don't attend" to ongoing wars.
Let me add a further specific one: the draft or lack of same. If there were a draft in place either the powers-that-be would not even dare to contemplate any of our present martial misadventures, or failing that the outraged citizenry would burn down the Congress!
BTW I had never thought about reason #8: the military's embrace of diversity helps to insulate it from criticism. This explains General Casey's inane statement that diversity shouldn't be a casualty of the Fort Hood massacre by a "diverse" officer!
Miro23 > , October 9, 2017 at 6:52 am GMTOne reason Trump won is that he promised to pull back the empire, while suggesting the Pentagon already has plenty of money. After the election, he demanded a 10% increase, and threatens North Korea to justify it! This increase alone is bigger than the entire annual military budget of Russia! The public is informed that this is because of cuts during the Obama years, but there were no cuts, only limits to increases.
How did the Democrats react? Most voted for a bigger military budget than the mindless increase proposed by Trump! That news was not reported by our corporate media, as Jimmy Dore explained:
Backwoods Bob > , October 9, 2017 at 7:37 am GMTA collective indifference to war has become an emblem of contemporary America.
Well, yes, the US has recently killed 100.000′s of Arab civilians because they were Terrorists (?) or to Bring them Democracy (?) or whatever, or something – or who cares anyway. There's more coverage of the transgender toilet access question.
So who are Mr & Mrs Indifferent, the emblems of contemporary America? https://www.yahoo.com/news/29-couples-boudoir-photos-almost-172445904.html ?.tsrc=fauxdal – Thanks to Priss
Robert Magill > , October 9, 2017 at 9:27 am GMTStructurally, you have arms production, military bases, hospitals, and related service industries across nearly all the congressional districts in the country.
So it is an enormous set of vested interests with both voting power and corporate money for campaign treasuries.
Quoting Ike was good, and he mentions the opportunity cost in schools, roads, etc. – but also the organizing political and economic power of the military industrial complex.
The government schools are with some exceptions worthless. No subject, let alone war, is taken on seriously.
The legacy media has been co-opted by the MIC/Financial interests. The state is spying on everyone and everyone knows so. Free speech, free association, free assembly, right to bear arms, confront your accuser, trial by jury, habeas corpus – all gone now.
So the sheep behave. They walk by the dead whistling, and look straight ahead.
While serving as defense secretary in the 1960s, Robert McNamara once mused that the "greatest contribution" of the Vietnam War might have been to make it possible for the United States "to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire." With regard to the conflict once widely referred to as McNamara's War, his claim proved grotesquely premature. Yet a half-century later, his wish has become reality.
He was dead wrong about this in the 60′s as it soon became obvious to everyone else. But we learned how "to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire." Cut out the military draft and embed the press into the ranks so they dare not report the actions they witness.
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Sep 30, 2017 | www.unz.com
The current 17-year old US war in Afghanistan has uncanny resemblances to the Vietnam War. In Kabul and Saigon, the US installed puppet governments that command no loyalty except from minority groups. They were steeped in drugs and corruption, and kept in power by intensive use of American air power. As in Vietnam, the US military and civilian effort in Afghanistan is led by a toxic mixture of deep ignorance and imperial arrogance.
The US military understands it has long ago lost the Afghan War but cannot bear the humiliation of admitting it was defeated by lightly-armed mountain tribesmen fighting for their independence. In Vietnam, Washington could not admit that young Vietnamese guerillas and regulars had bested the US armed forces thanks to their indomitable courage and intelligent tactics. No one outside Vietnam cared about the 2-3 million civilians killed in the conflict
Unfortunately, the PBS program fails to convey this imperial arrogance and the ignorance that impelled Washington into the war – the same foolhardy behavior that sent US forces into Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq and perhaps may do so in a second Korean War. The imperial spirit still burns hot in Washington among those who don't know or understand the outside world. The lessons of all these past conflicts have been forgotten: Washington's collective memory is only three years long.
Vietnam was not a 'tragedy,' as the PBS series asserts, but the product of imperial geopolitics. The same holds true for today's Mideast wars. To paraphrase a famous slogan from Vietnam, we destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria to make them safe for 'freedom.'
One of the craziest things about the Vietnam War has rarely been acknowledged: even at peak deployment, the 550,000 US soldiers in Vietnam were outnumbered by North Vietnamese fighting units.
That's because the huge US military had only about 50,000 real combat troops in the field. The other half million were support troops performing logistical and administrative functions behind the lines: a vast army of typists, cooks, truck drivers, psychologists, and pizza-makers.
Too much tail to teeth, as the army calls it. For Thanksgiving, everyone got turkey dinner with cranberry sauce, choppered into the remotest outposts. But there were simply not enough riflemen to take on the Viet Cong and tough North Vietnamese Army whose Soviet M1954 130mm howitzer with a 27 km range were far superior to the US Army's outdated WWII artillery.
Poor generalship, mediocre officers, and lack of discipline ensured that the US war effort in Vietnam would become and remain a mess. Stupid, pointless attacks against heavily defended hills inflicted huge casualties on US troops and eroded morale.
The monumentally stupid war mismanagement of Pentagon chief Robert McNamara, a know-it-all who knew nothing, turned the war into a macabre joke. This was the dumbest command decision since Louis XV put his girlfriend Madame de Pompadour in charge of his armies.
We soldiers, both in Vietnam and Stateside, scorned the war and mocked our officers. It didn't help that much of the US force in 'Nam' were often stoned and rebellious.
The January 30, 1968 Tet Offensive put the kibosh on US plans to pursue the war – and even take it into south-west China. Tet was a military victory of sorts for the US (and why not, with thousands of warplanes and B-52 heavy bombers) but a huge political/psychological victory for the Communists in spite of their heavy losses.
I vividly recall standing with a group of GI's reading a typed report on our company barracks advising that the Special Forces camp in the Central Highlands to which many of our company had been assigned for immediate duty had been overrun at Tet, and all its defenders killed. After that, the US Army's motto was 'stay alive, avoid combat, and smoke another reefer.'
The war became aimless and often surreal. We soldiers all knew our senior officers and political leaders were lying. Many soldiers were at the edge of mutiny, like the French Army in 1917. Back in those ancient days, we had expected our political leaders to be men of rectitude who told us the truth. Thanks to Vietnam, the politicians were exposed as liars and heartless cynics with no honor.
This same dark cloud hangs over our political landscape today. We have destroyed large parts of the Mideast, Afghanistan and northern Pakistan without a second thought – yet wonder why peoples from these ravaged nations hate us. Now, North Korea seems next.
Showing defiance to Washington brought B-52 bombers, toxic Agent Orange defoliants and endless storms of napalm and white phosphorus that would burn through one's body until it hit bone.
In spite of all, our imperial impulse till throbs. The nightmare Vietnam War in which over 58,000 American soldiers died for nothing has been largely forgotten. So we can now repeat the same fatal errors again without shame, remorse or understanding.
(Republished from EricMargolis.com by permission of author or representative)
anonymous, Disclaimer September 30, 2017 at 3:36 pm GMT
anonymous, Disclaimer September 30, 2017 at 3:36 pm GMTFor both Vietnam and Afghanistan, as well as other places, the guiding principle is that they live there and we don't. These are all expeditionary wars for the US. Resistant peoples can't be controlled at a distance. Of course the morale of US soldiers ends up being bad when they realize there's nothing for them to fight for. No one wants to die to help some politician save face. Insofar as the current much publicized Vietnam documentary goes there doesn't seem to be anything that's new or original. All of it has been known for many years to anyone who would bother to brush up on the subject. The question is whether Americans are capable of learning from the past and the answer seems to be no for the vast majority.
Cranky, September 30, 2017 at 3:37 pm GMTFor both Vietnam and Afghanistan, as well as other places, the guiding principle is that they live there and we don't. These are all expeditionary wars for the US. Resistant peoples can't be controlled at a distance. Of course the morale of US soldiers ends up being bad when they realize there's nothing for them to fight for. No one wants to die to help some politician save face. Insofar as the current much publicized Vietnam documentary goes there doesn't seem to be anything that's new or original. All of it has been known for many years to anyone who would bother to brush up on the subject. The question is whether Americans are capable of learning from the past and the answer seems to be no for the vast majority.
nsa, September 30, 2017 at 5:55 pm GMTSo whose name gets to be the last American killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc? Dying for a place on the memorial, boys. "The war was being run by a bunch of four-star clowns who were going to end up giving the whole circus away."
Some things don't change- I wonder if Rand has a new copy of the Pentagon Papers regarding post 9/11. And a new Nixon in office .he vowed to get out too -- and yet pushed more into it simply amazing.
Priss Factor, Website September 30, 2017 at 7:27 pm GMT@Sam McGowan First, I was heavily involved in Vietnam from 1965 to 1970. Second, I have written extensively about the war and read the books. The fact is that the US didn't "lose" the war, the left-wing presidents that got us into it, JFK and LBJ, has no intention of defeating the communist insurgency, they just wanted "to contain it". Cam Ranh Bay and made a speech in which he commented to the troops present that he wanted them to "nail the coonskin to the wall." Richard Nixon began withdrawing troops immediately after his inauguration and gave Abrams an edict to "reduce American casualties" shortly afterwards. In fact, Vietnam as well as Korea - as well as other wars around the world - were continuations of World War II, which Americans thought ended when the Japanese surrendered. By the way, I am not watching Ken Burn's latest left-wing propaganda piece nor do I intend to. I don't need him to tell me what happened in Southeast Asia, I was there. Save your senile hot air for the other menopausal drunks drooling in the VFW lounge. The conscript US military completely collapsed fragging, rampant drug usage, desertion, abject morale, chain of command disintegration, and the usual commissioned officer cowardice. Any western country stupid enough to pursue a land war in Asia deserves what it gets .inevitable defeat and humiliation.
Anon, Disclaimer October 1, 2017 at 4:37 am GMTI don't think CucKen Burns is entirely wrong in empathizing with those who got involved. Sure, there were warmongers. Sure, they were profiteers. Sure, there were power-maniacs. Sure, there were paranoids.
But Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon were not particularly sadistic or cruel men. Eisenhower could be aloof and mean. Kennedy could be vain. Johnson was plenty corrupt. Nixon could be nasty. But were not psychos or radicals like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, or Mao.
As for military men, well, whaddya expect? They were trained to think of the world in terms of military power. As for CIA, we are talking of more sinister elements, but let's keep in mind that Soviets had their intelligence organizations and methods of subversion. Let's remember Soviets had infiltrated FDR's government and pulled dirty trick. Even got the Bomb during Truman era.
Also, Soviets could be utterly ruthless in their own empire.Now, would the US have intervened in Vietnam if the nation was to be united by a non-communist nationalist? Probably not. US didn't intervene in Indonesia when it gained independence under Sukarno. The only reason US got involved was because Ho was a Soviet-leaning communist. And even though Domino theory has been 'debunked', it made sense at the time. Even Soviets believed in it. Mao believed in it. Soviets believed that sign of US weakness could spread the revolution all around. Che Guevara believed in the Domino Theory. Communist victory over Cuba, he thought, would herald spread of communism all over Latin America, and then it would spread into US itself. Che really believed this, which is why he died in Bolivia trying to start an insurgency.
Also, in a way, Domino Theory did come true, at least for awhile. Not so much in Southeast Asia, though Laos and Cambodia also fell to communism. And keep in mind Indonesia almost could have become communist if the Peking-backed coup had succeeded. And keep in mind it took lots of British brutality and ruthlessness to stem the communist movement in Malaysia. Brits built huge hamlets and concentration camps. They took extreme measures.
At any rate, communism did continue to spread after the fall of Vietnam. US power seemed to be declining. And not only communists were emboldened by US defeat in Vietnam. Vietnam became a metaphor for anti-Americanism all over the world. May 68 movement that almost brought down the French government was fired up partly by Vietnam(though it began as some silly stuff about dorms and sex). Vietnam was bigger than Algeria because US was seen as the Great Power. French defeat wasn't all that surprising in Algeria. So, after US left from Vietnam, there was a sense that David could beat American Goliath. Iran regime fell and Islamists came to power. Afghanistan turned communist, and Soviets felt emboldened in rolling in tanks. Ethiopia, Mozambique, and Angola turned communist. Communists won in Nicaragua and almost won in El Salvador. There was a raging Maoist insurgency in Peru. Allende came to power through elections, and he was pro-Soviet and pro-Cuba. He was removed only by US-backed coup that did as much harm as good. It blackened US reputation around the world. So, in a way, the Domino Theory wasn't all wrong. Vietnam did signal a sea-change in world politics at least for awhile.
In the end, communism wasn't defeated by the US. It defeated itself. Soviet economics just couldn't sustain the empire. Its subsidies to Cuba were costly. Its support of Marxist regimes in Africa drained Soviet economy. USSR had to prop up Iron Curtain nations economically. And Vietnamese communism was a disaster. Maoism was hell on earth. Some might say communism failed cuz Capitalist West froze the communists out of world trade. But considering that the communist world encompassed resource-rich Soviet Empire, people-rich China, and lots of nations willing to do business with communist nations -- India and Arab nations had good relations with Soviets -- , the real reason for failure of communism was it was its own worst enemy.
And when we look at the aftermath of communist victory in Indochina -- brutal repression in Vietnam and Laos and psychotic democide in Cambodia -- and when we consider how even communist nations like China and Vietnam switched to market economics, it's clear that US was on the right side of history on many issues.
Also, the conflict was complicated because both sides were aggressors. US was the aggressor in working with the French to divide Vietnam in half, in occupying the southern half, and dropping bombs and using Viet women as whores. But the communists were also aggressors because they tried to impose a form of Stalinism on people in the South, most of whom didn't want communism. After all, many more people fled the north to the south than vice versa. Why? There is something prison-like about communism. The commissars never leave you alone. Also, North Vietnamese leaders, though inspired and patriotic, were utterly ruthless in their own way, willing to sacrifice any number of people for victory just like Japanese militarists were willing to Go All the Way instead of calling it quits to save lives.
Still, in retrospect, Ho Chi Minh was a genuine patriot, a legendary figure much beloved by many Viets. And for that reason, US shouldn't have intervened, and the whole mess could have been avoided.
CucKen Burns makes my skin crawl, but at his best, he can look at both sides of the issue instead of going for b/w version of history with good guys vs bad guys.
That said, maybe his position reflects globalism. As Proglobalists now control the US, the neo-Pax-Americana is about the spread of agendas favored by the likes of CucKen Burns, like homomania, Jewish Power, anti-nationalism, and Afromania. Today's progs want the world to become neo-Americanized.
And in Vietnam, as Linh Dinh reported, there is now homo parades and Afromania and Vietcuckery. So, considering that Viet commies stood for patriotism and national sovereignty, maybe the globalist viewpoint is more favorable to US efforts to turn Vietnam into globo-disneyland.
After all, where was CucKen Burns when Obama and Hillary were destroying Libya, Ukraine, Syria, and etc. Where were he and his ilk when Jews were cooking up New Cold War with Russia with hysteria that would make McCarthy blush?
Jim Christian, October 1, 2017 at 6:03 am GMTIs the view that JFK wanted out of Vietnam merely a conspiratorial fantasy?. The following articles are easy reads:
Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK ordered a complete withdrawal from Vietnam
James K. Galbraith, BOSTON REVIEWJFK's Vietnam Withdrawal Plan Is a Fact, Not Speculation
A response to Rick Perlstein.
By James K. Galbraith, THE NATIONJim Christian, October 1, 2017 at 6:22 am GMT"The question is whether Americans are capable of learning from the past and the answer seems to be no for the vast majority."
Americans at-large have no power. A small cadre runs things now. Once Americans didn't have a draft to worry over, they vacated the streets and left the dying to the farmers' sons (metaphor for the poor). That's all it is. The damage done to the economy, the sheer quantities of cash vacuumed up from the rest of the country and showered over the Washington DC region escapes the imagination of us out here in the country with our local issues and problems. These, rooted in the sheer theft of our taxes and handed over to the war-mongers of DC because there simply isn't enough left over after feeding The Beast in Washington. We have aircraft carriers that can't launch aircraft, planes that won't fly, weapons that won't work and wrong strategies followed in war-fighting and procurement, yet still, the theft goes on.
War after war lost, yet the Generals are still revered, money to the pro-war think tanks is never ending and the revolving door between the Pentagon, White House and defense contractors (and their corporate boards) has never been richer. Doesn't matter the war industry doesn't win wars, the money is just so damned good they can't stop, won't stop. And who is to stop them? These are the folks that kill people, that have a file on each of us. Indeed, it is our only remaining industry, flawed and failed though it may be. It certainly is a rich one. And it IS unstoppable. Completely. Utterly.
2/1Doc RVN 68-89, October 1, 2017 at 12:27 pm GMT@Sam McGowan Concur all, McGowan, good takes. Yeah, my Pop was into Naval spook communications and messaging, he'd pick up the WashPost off the driveway and see various and sundry in the paper lying and white-washing the effort and just be wild by the time he left for work. He knew the carriers were having no success, he knew the air-war was a mess, he knew the Marines were getting killed all over the country. People that knew the truth from the inside hadda keep their traps shut.
By the time I joined up for a 6 year dose of USN carrier decks in 1976 I got the scoop from a few of our officers, almost all of whom had flown with VA35 over Vietnam in A-6′s. Clusterfuck, they could then acknowledge just those few years later, only the most junior officers hadn't served in the air war over Vietnam. And they had good stories that pointed out the folly throughout.
Now? The military is just a revenue-stream, nothing produced, much destroyed to the enrichment of a few insiders.
The Alarmist, October 1, 2017 at 4:08 pm GMTSir
Recently came across some startling statistics about men who served in Vietnam like you and me. Of the 2.7 million who served only 850,000 are still alive at last census!!!!!! 700,500 died prematurely between 1995 census and 2000 census. No country for old men .The Alarmist, October 1, 2017 at 4:25 pm GMT"And in Vietnam, as Linh Dinh reported, there is now homo parades and Afromania and Vietcuckery. So, considering that Viet commies stood for patriotism and national sovereignty, maybe the globalist viewpoint is more favorable to US efforts to turn Vietnam into globo-disneyland."
Bingo! The only problem is that the globalists are now using the opportunity to also wear down the populations of the home territories as well. The only reason our national economic imperialism wasn't enough of a raging success (don't get me wrong by any rational measure it was) was that it was kept in check by the opposing communist bloc, and still America managed to conquer the so-called free world with Coca Cola, McDonalds, Hollywood Inc., etc.
When the communists gave up and joined the party, our globalist masters realized that they could not only amass further wealth by spreading these things to the former communist bloc and under-exploited non-aligned nations, but they could now squeeze even more profit-margin out of the home territories by wearing down the power of the local workforce at all levels, except, of course, for the very pinnacle, by outsourcing production and even many services to the newly "developing world."
Ironically, fighting the communist threat probably kept our leadership more honest than they have been in the new world order since the fall of communism.
KenH, October 1, 2017 at 11:00 pm GMT"No one in Washington seemed to know that China and the Soviet Union had split and become bitter enemies. As ever, our foreign human intelligence was lousy."
They knew of the rift that had grown since 1960 or so, but they didn't believe it until the short border war in 1969. The same way that a number of indicators suggested as early as 1983 that the USSR was imploding, but the menace of the USSR was used to keep justifying a buildup and procurement of new systems until and even beyond its actual implosion a few years later.
Evil, stupid, or merely blind. You decide.
DB Cooper, October 2, 2017 at 4:38 am GMTI know opinions vary on Ken Burns/PBS's "Vietnam" documentary, but what struck me is that we're following the same script in Afghanistan and the Middle East as we were in Vietnam and expecting a different (i.e., more favorable) outcome. The script being "pacification" through providing medicine, foodstuffs, soccer balls and American smiles to the local populations combined with placing massive amounts of ordnance on targets deemed hostile. It didn't win hearts and minds then nor is it now.
The generals keep telling us that with just a few more antibiotics, soccer balls and troops victory is around the bend.
Hindsight's always 20/20, but to be fair a military force in Vietnam did seem like the right thing do at least in the early years. Any de-escalation and/or withdrawals would have been perceived by a rabidly anti-communist population as surrendering to communist aggression and political suicide for any president proposing it.
The monumentally stupid war mismanagement of Pentagon chief Robert McNamara, a know-it-all who knew nothing,
We have legions of McNamara's calling the shots today. They are called neoconservatives and liberal interventionists. The big brains of the Ivy league do seem to excel at steering us into icebergs time and again.
As it was former allies Vietnam and China briefly fought each other in 1979 and Vietnam didn't have the desire or the ability to project power much beyond Cambodia and Laos.
Diversity Heretic, October 2, 2017 at 6:14 am GMT"We really believed that if the US did not make a stand in Vietnam the Soviets and Chinese would overrun all of South Asia."
India played a big role in shaping this narrative. Just five years ago before 1967 China finally responded to India's creeping land grab after years of trying to warn New Delhi's to stop its 'Forward Policy' by launching a massive anticipatory strike into India. India was defeated militarily but India was able to fool the world that India was a hapless victim against an agressive China when in fact the reverse is true.
Blowback, October 2, 2017 at 1:07 pm GMT@Jim Christian A bit off topic, but, since I know that you had naval experience, any take on why Navy ships keep colliding with merchantmen? Is it reduced competence because of racial and sexual preferences, or overworked sailors because deployed ships are short-staffed as a result of pregnancies? Or is it just a run of bad luck? I've read some different theories but I've seen you post often enough to know that you'll have an informed opinion.
Jim Christian, October 2, 2017 at 1:09 pm GMT@Sam McGowan What don't you understand about Clausewitz's dictum "war is the mere continuation of politics with other means"? War is what you do when you can't achieve your political objectives by other means. The United States' political objective in Vietnam was to prevent the American satrapy in the south being re-united by the nationalists in the north. So, where the f ** k is South Vietnam? The United States might believe it won every battle (slight exaggeration) but it still lost the American war.
Don Bacon, October 2, 2017 at 2:56 pm GMT@Diversity Heretic The military is off-kilter all over. Navigation? Routine. Ought to be. Not anymore. Procurement? Driven by inertia and the corruption of planners that know a carrier's planes are useless if the ship has to stand off 500-1000 miles because of a cruise missile environment that they KNOW every third-world shitbox has been building for 30 years now, starting with the Norks. From aircraft to ships, a complete clusterfuck.
Personnel? Ya gotta be shitting me, right? Between the sexism, reverse-racism and the cultural kookiness from the top of a terrorized Central Command and throughout the military, right down to the pretty little Blonde Hispanic Black Dwarf tranny just dying to terrorize said command with a complaint, we really haven't much good to say about our staffing. It's not a meritocracy anymore, hasn't been since Reagan. The entire thing is sitting there waiting to be taken down and humiliated.
And still? We sprinkle the trillions onto the DC region, make the war planners rich, we still lionize Generals and Admirals that haven't won shit in 75 years and we cycle them through the think tanks and corporate boards of the defense contractors and make THEM rich too. Then we even put them in charge at the White House, having discarded the notion of Congressional approval for the wars they "fight" in our names. And they start wars. And finally, the notion that we have civilian control of our military is long gone. We are a Junta. There is a coup ongoing, two or more in our past and we're no more than a broke but dangerous and heavily armed danger to the rest of the world run by the thugs of the Pentagon, the think tanks, the defense contractors and the lazy sloth of Congress, who is supposed to keep this shit straight and Constitutional. Doom. Yes, the word doom comes to mind.
Jim Christian, October 2, 2017 at 4:08 pm GMT@anonymous re: "No one wants to die to help some politician save face."
I don't have a teevee, but I bet they didn't cover the mutiny in the ranks which is the main reason the US had to withdraw because of a "broken army." That included fragging, mission refusal, and an overall negative attitude as you suggest. Now we have a volunteer army, a warrior class, which changes that dynamic.
Diversity Heretic, October 2, 2017 at 6:18 pm GMTThanks! Always appreciate your candor!
One man's opinion. I do wish someone would show me where I'm wrong, but I spent too many years down in DC doing their tech stuff after I left the Navy (too many women that couldn't, at that point in 82, go to sea) and so they only had more sea duty because the shore billets were all taken in their haste to "integrate" women into the Navy. Even instructor duty for Naval Air Maintenance was hosted by women that had never served a day in carrier air, training the young mice how to do business on a flight deck. They did offer me, for variety, another four year hitch in a WestPac squadron aboard one damned carrier deck or another. Already having done 5, I said no thanks and went back home to Virginia. And so I got familiar with the workings of the spooks, Booze, Allen, Heritage, Cato, Brookings, the Pentagon, NSA, FBI, Quantico, there were hundreds of them, most with two or three names in the chain of title. I did their phones for decades, they're psychos, they're paranoid, everything classified and spooky and ooga-booga. Worthless ants on a big log and they each think they're steering it down the river.
Bunch of fucking Frank Burns's is what they are..Cheers.
anonymous, Disclaimer October 2, 2017 at 11:03 pm GMT@Jim Christian Take care of yourself. People like you are a national asset, appreciated by at least some of us.
Jack Spratt, October 3, 2017 at 4:57 am GMTThere never was a communist threat. Not since at least the 1920s, when Stalin defeated Trotsky. Trotsky wanted world revolution. Stalin, for all his bloodthirsty antics in Russia, realised this was all nonsense. He just wanted Socialism in One Country, developing the country economically. He wasn't really interested in the outside world.
In the 1930s he was willing to cooperate with right wing western governments till they did a deal with Hitler in 1938. He was never interested in invading countries to grab land and resources. Whenever he did so, Poland in 1939, or Eastern Europe post 1945, it was for security reasons. The part of Poland he occupied in 1939 had been taken from Russia by force in 1920. It was inhabited by 1o million White Russians and Ukrainians and no Poles.
Capn Mike, October 3, 2017 at 5:20 am GMTWissing's book "Funding the enemy" details the totally corrupt Afghan government and is a compelling argument why we should pull out at once and needs to be read by anyone with half a brain. I served in Vietnam also, in 1967, and its deja vu all over again.
Vidi, October 3, 2017 at 6:15 am GMT@The Alarmist Having been on – site at the time (North Tonkin Gulf), I can tell you that China gave U.S.N. units free rein over those waters, including Chinese waters. The fix was in. In 1969 onwards. China and Viet Nam were NEVER friends. Did CIA realize this? I don't know.
wayfarer, October 3, 2017 at 6:19 am GMTAnyways, expect the US to keep on wasting money in Afghanistan (and Pakistan and Tajikistan) until it gets bankrupted by the next Big War!
Or until all the routes into Afghanistan are blocked. At the moment, the only route still open passes through Pakistan, and that may close at any time.
Hibernian, October 3, 2017 at 10:57 am GMTOf the 58,220 Americans who were sacrificed by the U.S. Government during the Vietnam War, 270 were Jewish. That's approximately 0.46 percent of the total number of American kids who died, or less than a half of one-percent.
"Statistical Information About Casualties of the Vietnam War"
https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html
" 9/11 Israel Did It! "
Hibernian, October 3, 2017 at 11:05 am GMT@Grandpa Charlie The Japanese trained their naval cadets using a mock Pearl Harbor type exercise annually for a fair number of years prior to WW2. The Russo-Japanese War of 1905 began with a Japanese surprise attack. You have the unmitigated gall to attack Margolis as an establishment mouthpiece when you yourself are whitewashhing the "sainted" FDR. No prudent military planner would absolutely assume that the attack would come in one particular place, whether the Phillipines, Pearl, or elsewhere.
Che Guava, October 3, 2017 at 12:13 pm GMT@Don Bacon Too many of the volunteers are really economic draftees. You can have plenty of discipline problems with volunteers, I've seen it up close and personal, although never reaching the level of mutiny.
Hu Mi Yu, October 3, 2017 at 12:52 pm GMT@Capn Mike That is interesting to me. As is the Margolis artictle, never knew he had been a USA soldier, very interesting article. Thought he was a Canada person.
I have a question for you, Capn Mike.
If the PRC had allowed the USA free rein in Gulf of Tonkin, where were the supply lines to the Nth. Viet military and Viet Cong?
Must it not still have been overland from PRC at that time you say (1969)?
Max Havelaar, October 3, 2017 at 1:41 pm GMTI don't for a moment believe that the 'saintly' President John Kennedy planned to end the war but was assassinated by dark, rightwing forces, as is claimed. This is a charming legend. Richard Nixon, Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson all feared that a withdrawal from Vietnam would lose them the next election. Republicans were still snarling over 'who lost China'.
I didn't like Kennedy either, but go back and reread the newspapers from the early days of the Kennedy administration. The oval office was bugged, and the information leaked in ways to embarrass Kennedy and UN Ambassador Adelai Stevenson. There is only one way that could have happened. Eisenhower installed those bugs before he left. These same bugs brought down Nixon in the Watergate crisis. The swamp wanted war, and they pulled the rug out from under both presidents as soon as they brought peace.
And a new Nixon in office .he vowed to get out too- and yet pushed more into it simply amazing.
He promised to get out and he did get us out. The peace treaty was announced just before the election in 1972. He knew it was his only hope for re-election. The Vietnamese disputed some of the terms, and that resulted in the Christmas bombing that year. The American withdrawal began in January 1973.
Trump promised to get us out of the Middle East. We should give him some rope. Maybe he hangs himself, or just maybe he can pull it off. He will need to be re-elected in three years.
jacques sheete, October 3, 2017 at 3:25 pm GMTNice personal account of Vietnam.
However, the US foreign policy keeps holocausting the 3-rd world and lately the 2 -cond world.
The holocausts keep coming from US foreign policy of "exceptionalism" = "Nazi Übermensch"="the chosen ones" over this planet, many executed by the CIA-Nazi's:
The Syrian holocaust
The Yemen holocaust
The Ukranïan holocaust (Euromaidan) by Poroshenko/Nuland neo-nazi"s.
The Libyan holocaust
The Irak holocaust
The Afghanistan holocaustThe Belgrad holocaust
The Indonesian holocaust (Kissiger e.a.)
The Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia/Thailand holocaust (Kissinger e.a)
The Korean holocaustDuring WWII:
The Jewish/Polish/Russian holocaust by Nazi's funded by Wallstreet/London bankers
The German holocaust (Die Rheinweisen lager) by US army Morgenthau plan.Before WWII:
The Ukranian and Russain holocausts 1921-22, 1932-33 (holodomor) by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin.All these, were and are financed by the Wallstreet elite owners, the Billionaires who are mega-fascists, eugenic and satanic in character. Their credo is GREED.
(sources: Antony Sutton, Carrol Quickley, W.F. Engdahl)
Thanks to Vietnam, the politicians were exposed as liars and heartless cynics with no honor.
A couple of the biggest lies were exposed, but the myths still live that the US government is an effective and dependable force for peace and freedom, and that the US military is an institution of dignity worthy of honor.
And people still put their faith (or is it hope) in the heartless cynics ( eunichs, really) with no balls, fewer brains, no soul, and even less honor.
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Sep 26, 2017 | www.fff.org
Review of America's War for the Greater Middle East by Andrew J. Bacevich (New York: Random House, 2016; 480 pages)
Americas War for the Greater Middle East. Over time, other considerations intruded and complicated the wars conduct, but oil as a prerequisite of freedom was from day one an abiding consideration.
By 1969, oil imports already made up 20 percent of the daily oil consumption in the United States. Four years later, Arab oil exporters suspended oil shipments to the United States to punish America for supporting Israel in the October War. The American economy screeched to a halt, seemingly held hostage by foreigners -- a big no-no for a country accustomed to getting what it wants. Predictably the U.S. response was regional domination to keep the oil flowing to America, especially to the Pentagon and its vast, permanent war machine.
The Middle East was now a U.S. military priority, and the pursuit of direct American domination of the region came from none other than the supposed peacenik, Jimmy Carter. Before him, Richard Nixon was content to have the Middle East managed by proxies after the bloodletting America experienced in Vietnam. His arch-proxy was the despised shah of Iran, whom the United States had installed into power and then armed to the teeth. When his regime collapsed in 1979, felled by Islamic revolutionaries who would eventually capture the American embassy and initiate the Iranian hostage crisis, so too did the Nixon Doctrine. That same year, the Soviet Union rolled into Afghanistan. The world was a mess, and Carter was under extreme pressure to do something about it, lest he lose his bid for a second term. (He suffered a crushing defeat anyway.)
Furies beyond reckoning
The result was the Carter Doctrine. Delivered to the American people during the 1980 State of Union Address, Carter started Americas War for the Greater Middle East. Months earlier, in his infamous malaise speech, Carter asked Americans to simplify their lives and moderate their energy use. Now he declared Americas right to cheap energy. Let our position be absolutely clear, he said. An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.
Analyzing the Carter Doctrine, Bacevich writes that it represented a broad, open-ended commitment, one that expanded further with time -- one that implied the conversion of the Persian Gulf into an informal American protectorate. Defending the region meant policing it. And police it America has done, wrapping its naked self-interest in the seemingly noble cloth of democratization and human rights.
It is illustrative, and alarming, to list Bacevichs selected campaigns and operations in the region since 1980 up to the present, unleashed by Carter and subsequent presidents. Lets go in alphabetical order by country followed by the campaigns and operations:
- Afghanistan (Cyclone, 1980–1989; Infinite Reach, 1998; Enduring Freedom, 2001–2015; Freedoms Sentinel, 2015–present);
- Bosnia (Deny Flight, 1993–1995; Deliberate Force, 1995; Joint Endeavor, 1995–1996);
- East Africa (Enduring Freedom -- Trans Sahara, 2007–present);
- Egypt (Bright Star, 1980–2009);
- Iraq (Desert Storm, 1991; Southern Watch, 1991–2003; Desert Strike, 1996; Northern Watch, 1997–2003; Desert Fox, 1998; Iraqi Freedom, 2003–2010; New Dawn, 2010–2011; Inherent Resolve, 2014–present);
- Iran (Eagle Claw, 1980; Olympic Games, 2007–2010)
- Kosovo (Determined Force, 1998; Allied Force, 1999; Joint Guardian, 1999–2005);
- Lebanon (Multinational Force, 1982–1984);
- Libya (El Dorado Canyon, 1986; Odyssey Dawn, 2011);
- North/West Africa (Enduring Freedom -- Trans Sahara, 2007– present);
- Pakistan (Neptune Spear, 2011);
- Persian Gulf (Earnest Will, 1987–1988; Nimble Archer, 1987; Praying Mantis, 1988);
- Saudi Arabia (Desert Shield, 1990; Desert Focus, 1996);
- Somalia (Restore Hope, 1992–1993; Gothic Serpent, 1993); Sudan (Infinite Reach, 1998);
- Syria (Inherent Resolve, 2014–present);
- Turkey (Provide Comfort, 1991);
- Yemen (Determined Response, 2000)
While Bacevich deftly takes the reader through the history of all those wars, the most important aspect of his book is his critique of the United Statess permanent military establishment and the power it wields in Washington. According to Bacevich, U.S. military leaders have a tendency to engage in fantastical thinking rife with hubris. Too many believe the United States is a global force for good that has the messianic duty to usher in secular modernity, a force that no one should ever interfere with, either militarily or ideologically.
As Bacevich makes plain again and again, history does not back up that mindset. For instance, after the Soviet Unions crippling defeat in Afghanistan, the Washington elite saw it as an American victory, the inauguration of the end of history and the inevitable march of democratic capitalism. They didnt see that the U.S.-armed Afghan mujahideen also believed they were the victors and that they had every intention of resisting Americas version of modernity as much as they had resisted the Soviet Unions. (Americas self-destructive trend of arming its eventual enemies -- either directly or indirectly from Saddam Hussein to ISIS, respectively -- is a recurring theme of Bacevichs narrative.)
Over and over again after 9/11, America would be taught this lesson, as Islamic extremists, both Sunni and Shia, bloodied the U.S. military across the Greater Middle East, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. History cannot be controlled, and it had its revenge on a U.S. military and political elite who somehow believed they could see the future and manage historical forces toward a predestined end that naturally benefitted America. As Reinhold Niebuhr warned, and Bacevich quotes approvingly, The recalcitrant forces in the historical drama have a power and persistence beyond our reckoning.
Yet across Americas War for the Greater Middle East, presidents would speak theologically of Americas role in the world, never admitting the United States is not an instrument of the Almighty. George H.W. Bush would speak of a new world order. Bill Clintons Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would declare that America is the indispensable nation. George W. Bushs faith in this delusion led him to declare a global war on terrorism, where American military might would extinguish evil wherever it resided and initiate Condoleeza Rices 'paradigm of progress -- democracy, limited government, market economics, and respect for human (and especially womens) rights across the region. As with all zealots, there was no acknowledgment by the Bush administration, flamboyantly Christian, that evil resided inside them too. Barack Obama seemed to pull back from this arrogance in his 2009 Cairo speech, declaring, No system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other. Yet he continued to articulate his faith that all people desire liberal democracy, even though that simply isnt true.
All in all, American presidents and their military advisors believed they could impose a democratic capitalist peace on the world, undeterred that each intervention created more instability and unleashed new violent forces the United States would eventually engage militarily, such as Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. Bacevich explains that this conviction, deeply embedded in the American collective psyche, provides one of the connecting threads making the ongoing War for the Greater Middle East something more than a collection of disparate and geographically scattered skirmishes.
War and diplomacy
Another piece of connective tissue, according to Bacevich, is the belief that war is not the failure of diplomacy but a necessary ingredient to its success. The U.S. military establishment learned this lesson in Bosnia when U.S.-led NATO bombing brought Serbia to the negotiating table at the Dayton Peace Accords. The proper role of armed force, writes Bacevich, was not to supplant diplomacy but to make it work. Gen. Wesley Clark was more succinct when he called war coercive diplomacy during the Kosovo conflict. U.S. military force was no longer a last resort, particularly when technology was making it easier to unleash violence without endangering U.S. service members lives.
This logic would run aground in Iraq after 9/11 during what Bacevich calls the Third Gulf War. In an act of preventive war, the Bush administration shocked and awed Baghdad, believing U.S. military supremacy and its almost divine violence would bring other state sponsors of terrorism to heel after America quickly won the war. Vanquishing Saddam Hussein and destroying his army promised to invest American diplomacy with the power to coerce. Although the Bush administration believed the war ended after three weeks, Bacevich notes, the Third Gulf War was destined to continue for another 450. The people on the ground, as the D.C. elites just learned in November, have a way of not going along with the best-laid plans made for them in the epicenters of power.
There was hope that Barack Obama, a constitutional professor, would correct the Bush administrations failures and start to wind down Americas War for the Greater Middle East. Instead, he expanded it into Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and West Africa through drone warfare and special-operations missions. Without any unifying aim or idea, according to Bacevich, the Obama administrations principal contribution to Americas War for the Greater Middle East was to expand its fronts.
Now this war is in the hands of Donald J. Trump. If there is any upside to a Trump presidency -- and I find it hard to find many -- its the possibility that the intensity of American imperialism in the Middle East will wane. But I find that likelihood remote. Trump has promised to wipe out ISIS, which means continued military action in at least Iraq, Syria, and Libya. He has also called for more military spending, and I find it hard to believe that he or the national-security establishment will increase investment in the military and then show restraint in the use of force overseas.
As Bacevich clearly shows over and over again in his narrative, the men and women who make up the defense establishment have a fanatical, almost theological, belief in the transformational power of American violence. They persist in this belief despite all evidence to the contrary. These are the men and women who will be whispering their advice into the new presidents ear. Expect Uncle Sams fangs to grow longer, his talons sharper, his violence huge.
Bacevich, himself, is not hopeful. In a note to readers that greets them before the prologue, Bacevich is refreshingly terse with his assessment of Americas war for the Greater Middle East: We have not won it. We are not winning it. Simply trying harder is unlikely to produce a different outcome. And to this its not hard to hear Trump retort, Loser! And so the needless violence will continue on and on with no end in sight unless the American population develops a Middle East syndrome to replace the Vietnam syndrome that once made Washington wary of war.
That lack of confidence in the masters of war cant come soon enough.
This article was originally published in the July 2017 edition of Future of Freedom .
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Sep 26, 2017 | therealnews.com
The consequences of US meddling and Saudi Wahhabism have decimated Iraq and pitted multiple Middle East groups against the other, says independent journalist Rania Khalek
... ... ...
RANIA KHALEK: No, exactly, and at the end of the day, it kind of goes to the outside players who continue to meddle in the region. They just create a more violent, more toxic region where the conditions are fomented for more sectarianism, for more hatred, for more atrocities, one group against another.And you know, I didn't really get to this in my piece, but now you have a situation because of what happened with ISIS, and we can also say ISIS, the outcome of ISIS existing, is a direct result of the U.S. intervention in Iraq. You could say that Al Qaeda would never have come to Iraq. You never would have had ISIS had the U.S. not opened the floodgates when it intervened in that country in the way it intervened.
And so, now, you have a situation now where Yazidis and Sunni Arabs who were able to live together for quite a while in Sinjar next door, being not just neighbors, but also friends, now hate each other. Yazidis never, ever, ever, and this is actually not just true for Yazidis, I mean, I'm talking like minority communities in general in Iraq, they now kind of harbor this hatred for Sunni Arabs because of what ISIS did to them and in some cases, it was their neighbors who turned on them when ISIS came. So, people that they knew, people that were even friends with. And so, now there is this trauma and this distrust between Sunni Arabs and Yazidis and they probably won't be able to live together for a very, very long time.
At the same time, the Kurdistan regional government is using the ISIS atrocities as a way to kind of like remove Sunni Arabs from areas just kind of calling them blanket, calling them all ISIS and removing them and burning down their villages as they did in Sinjar. And so, now you have a situation where it's just like you said, one community after another keeps being pitted against the other. And at the end of the day, the region is less safe. The region is a less hospitable place for people to live, and I mean Iraq is honestly one of the most extreme versions of this that I've ever seen and it's the outcome of decades and decades and decades of U.S. empire meddling in that region and just using one group against another.
It's worse than any place I've ever seen in that respect. Syria, Lebanon, I mean Iraq really tops it all. And so at the end of the day, I think it's really kind of a lesson in why the U.S. should not be involved in the Middle East in the way it has been.
AARON MATÉ: Rania, finally, you spoke to Yezidis who survived and witnessed unimaginable atrocities under ISIS. What was that like for you?
RANIA KHALEK: It's the first time that I've ever had to sit down and listen to somebody tell me about how they were gang raped or about they were raped at all. I'm not a grief counselor and I don't think that I've ever, ever, I mean I've never heard these kinds of stories before. It was really, really shocking to me especially speaking to the women survivors. The most, it was really, really shocking to me, the kinds of stuff they went through.
In one case, one woman told me that the ISIS wife of one of the men who bought her, she was sold seven times, and one of the men who bought her, his wife actually helped him rape her. So, you have women who participated in helping to rape people because of their identity, because they were sub-human to them because they were Yazidi.
Hearing these kinds of stories, honestly, it really felt like I was talking to Holocaust survivors. It was really, really shocking and I don't think that level of, like I said, the Yazidi plight has received a lot of attention, but I don't think their genocide has necessarily received the attention that it deserves because all I kept thinking was how angry it made me.
Because there's an ideological basis, an ideological foundation for why ISIS did the things that they did. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. It doesn't come from nowhere. Its ideology is based in Salafism and Wahhabism and it's an ideology that is the state religion of the U.S.'s greatest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.
And that's something that Yazidis kept saying to me that I never, ever, ever see expressed in any articles that I read about the Yazidis is they always, always say, "How come Saudi Arabia is allowed to push these ideas everywhere." That's where this comes from. This is who did this to us as this ideology. And they mention the Saudis and they mention the U.S.. For some reason, this will be in other articles I have coming out about this issue, but I never, ever read about this. And so if anything, hearing the kinds of stories I heard, at the end of the day, as atrocious as they were and as traumatic as they were to hear, what made me angriest is that nobody's talking about the ideological basis behind this, which is a fascistic ideology that is tolerated because it comes from America's number one ally in the region.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and really on this front I have to point out, for raising this issue in the same way that we've seen supporters of Israel call critics of Israel anti-Semites. I've recently been seeing some critics of yours paint your argument as Islamophobic for pointing to the particularly dangerous facets of Wahhabism in the Saudi Arabian version which I found a very interesting parallel. I don't know, a brief comment on that?
RANIA KHALEK: Well, yeah, so I think that that's a really great way you just put it is if anything, the people who want to defend Wahhabism have adopted a similar strategy as we've seen Israel's most excited supporters take views against its critics, which is to call anybody who criticizes Zionism or Israel or the policies of Israel, an anti-Semite. And it's really sad to me to see people taking that strategy and applying it to the issue of Islamophobia. Especially at a time when in America, Islamophobia is at its peak. It's at its worst it's ever been. We have a president right now who literally got elected on hatred for Muslims.
So, it's not something that should ever be, I feel like it makes a mockery of Islamophobia to try and say that and austere strain of Sunni Islam like Wahhabism, to say that criticizing that is somehow Islamophobic. It's absolutely absurd. And beyond that, I will tell you right now, it is not just, this is the fascistic ideology in the Middle East is Wahhabism and Salafi-like Jihadi style thinking, which comes directly out of Wahhabism.
And so for someone like me, who's a Middle Easterner, who at the moment is based in the region, I can tell you right now this is a conversation here that people are having and they don't see this being Islamophobic whatsoever, and it's really absurd for people in the West to be projecting Western dynamics of Islamophobia onto a region that actually does have to deal with groups that want to impose, Sharia Law that want to impose Al-Qaeda style laws. Because we do have Al-Qaeda in this region that does want to impose this on people, that wants to wipe out minorities, that wants to wipe out secular people, that wants to wipe out anybody who doesn't agree with them.
And so I think it's just really, there's a lot of conversations happening among progressives in the U.S. about how it might be Islamophobic to be criticizing, like I said, Wahhabism and Salafism, but from my vantage point in this region, it just looks so absurd and so disconnected from reality.
AARON MATÉ: The term that I think Max Blumenthal coined, correct me if I'm wrong is 'Woke Wahhabism.'
RANIA KHALEK: Yeah, [laughs] 'Woke Wahhabism.' I don't think people understand. It's so insane. Wahhabism literally preaches like, supremacy. It's like the Middle East's version of white supremacy is Wahhabism. It's like these Al-Qaeda groups, these ISIS groups are the Middle East's version of the KKK and of these white nationalist groups you see in the U.S., and so if anything, these are kind of similar symptoms of something I see happening around the globe which is this sort of rise of fascism, but we always have to remember that in the Middle East, in the context of the Middle East and even beyond the Middle East, Wahhabism isn't rising naturally. Salafism isn't rising naturally. Saudi Arabia has spent a hundred billion dollars plus over the past several decades with the U.S.'s approval and participation supporting this ideology in Muslim communities around the world. And this is something we need to be talking about or else we end up conceding the conversation about these issues to the far Right, which is just going to blanket brush every single Muslim as being a part of the Wahhabi style doctrine, which isn't true.
And so, I think that this is a conversation that the Left needs to be having. It needs to be on the forefront of because at the end of the day, Wahhabism is really just a tool of American imperialism because the Saudis don't do anything without America's approval and without America participating in helping them do it. So that's something to consider when we do have these conversations. 'Woke Wahhabism.' [laughs].
AARON MATÉ: Rania Khalek, independent Journalist, co-host of the podcast, Unauthorized Disclosure. Her new piece for Alternate's Grayzone Project is called In the
'Field with Yezidi Fighters, Tales of Genocide at ISIS's Hands and More Conflicts to Come.' Rania, thank you.
Youri • 2 days ago
thank you Real News for having Rania on, I feel you could invite her more but I'm glad you haven't blacklisted her like Vice, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, Democracy Now, The Intercept and others who have shamefully jumped the shark on Syria, Venezuela, and Russia conspiracy theories. Rania I feel deserves a Reality Asserts itself special, please do it. And I can't believe with all we know about Saudi Arabia and US-UK foreign policy towards the Middle East that people would be for the overthrow of Assad and ignore Western support for Saudi and Qatar and turkey exporting ISIS to Syria to overthrow Assad so they can put pipeline and create a Sunni client state there. How is Rania or anyone islamaphobic or a assadist for that? its ridiculous.
Well Rania keep up the brilliant work your doing, and all the haters and smear artists and insincere left outlets and faux indie outlets can go to hell. Folks donate generously to the Real News, AlterNet that publishes Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton and yours truly Rania's work, and donate to Shadowproof and Unauthorized Disclosure that Rania co-hosts with Kevin Gosztola. Stay safe Rania, and "Good night & good luck".
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Jun 03, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
By Mark Ames, founding editor of the Moscow satirical paper The eXile and co-host of the Radio War Nerd podcast with Gary Brecher (aka John Dolan). Subscribe here. Originally published at The eXiled
Mother Jones recently announced it's "redoubling our Russia reporting"-in the words of editor Clara Jeffery. Ain't that rich. What passes for "Russia reporting" at Mother Jones is mostly just glorified InfoWars paranoia for progressive marks - a cataract of xenophobic conspiracy theories about inscrutable Russian barbarians hellbent on subverting our way of life, spreading chaos, destroying freedom & democracy & tolerance wherever they once flourished. . . . because they hate us, because we're free.
Western reporting on Russia has always been garbage, But the so-called "Russia reporting" of the last year has taken the usual malpractice to unimagined depths - whether it's from Mother Jones or MSNBC, or the Washington Post or Resistance hero Louise Mensch.
But of all the liberal media, Mother Jones should be most ashamed for fueling the moral panic about Russian "disinformation". It wasn't too long ago that the Reagan Right attacked Mother Jones for spreading "Kremlin disinformation" and subverting America. There were threats and leaks to the media about a possible Senate investigation into Mother Jones serving as a Kremlin disinformation dupe, a threat that hung over the magazine throughout the early Reagan years. A new Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism (SST for short) was set up in 1981 to investigate Kremlin "disinformation" and "active measures" in America, and the American "dupes" who helped Moscow subvert our way of life. That subcommittee was created to harass and repress leftist anti-imperial dissent in America, using "terrorism" as the main threat, and "disinformation" as terrorism's fellow traveller. The way the the SST committee put it, "terrorism" and "Kremlin disinformation" were one and the same, a meta-conspiracy run out of Moscow to weaken America.
And Mother Jones was one of the first American media outlets in the SST committee's sites.
Adam Hochschild, the founding editor of Mother Jones (and author of some great books including King Leopold's Ghost), responded publicly to the threats coming out of the Senate in the early Reagan years. In a New York Times op-ed published in late 1981, "Dis-(Mis-?)Information", Hochschild wrote about a Republican Senate mailer sent out to 290 radio stations that accused Mother Jones of being Kremlin disinformation dupes. The mailer, on Senate letterhead, featured a tape recording of an interview between the chairman of the SST subcommittee, Sen. Jeremiah Denton of Alabama, and a committee witness- a "disinformation expert" named Arnaud de Borchgrave, author of a bestselling spy novel called "The Spike" - about a fictional Kremlin plot to subvert the West with disinformation, and thereby rule the world.
Here's how Hochschild described the Republican Senate mailer in his NYTimes piece:
"In it, the writer Arnaud de Borchgrave accuses Mother Jones, the Village Voice, the Soho News, the Progressive magazine of serving as disseminators of K.G.B. 'disinformation' – the planting of false or misleading items in news media. "Mr. de Borchgrave provided no specific examples of facts or articles. But, then, the trouble with the K.G.B. is that you don't know what disinformation it is feeding you because you don't know who its myriad agents are. So the only safe thing is to distrust any author or magazine too critical of the United States. Because anyone who is against, say, the MX or the B-1 bomber could be working for the Russians."
Here, the Mother Jones founder describes the menacing logic of pursuing the "Kremlin disinformation" conspiracy: any American critical of US military power, police power, corporate power, overseas power . . . anyone critical of anything that powerful Americans do, is a Kremlin disinformation dupe whether they know it or not. That leaves only the appointed accusers to decide who is and who isn't a Kremlin agent.
Hochschild called this panic over Kremlin disinformation another "Red Scare", warning,
"[T]o accuse critical American journalists of serving as its unwitting dupes makes as little sense as Russians accusing rebellious Poles of being unwitting agents of American imperialism. When Mr. de Borchgrave accuses skeptical journalists of being unwitting purveyors of disinformation, the accusation is more slippery, less easy to definitively disprove, and less subject to libel law than if he were to accuse them of being conscious Communist agents.
" Although if you believe the K.G.B. is successfully infiltrating America's news media, then anything must seem possible."
It's a damn shame today's editorial staff at Mother Jones aren't aware of their own magazine's history.
Then again, who am I fooling? Mother Jones wouldn't care if you shoved their faces in their own recent history - they're way too donor-deep invested in pushing this "active measures" conspiracy. Trump has been a goldmine of donor cash for anyone willing to carry the #Resistance water.
PutinTrump was a project set up last fall by tech plutocrat Rob Glaser, CEO and founder of RealNetworks, to scare voters into believing that voting for Trump is treason. God knows I can't stand Trump or his politics, but of all the inane campaign ideas to run on - this?
One would've thought that the smart people would learn their lesson from the election, that running against a Kremlin conspiracy theory is a loser. But instead, they seem to think the problem is they didn't fear-monger enough, so they're "redoubling" on the Russophobia. Donor money is driving this - donor cash is quite literally driving Mother Jones' editorial focus. And it really is this crude.
Take for example a PutinTrump section titled "Russian Expansion" - the scary Red imagery and language are lifted straight out of the Reagan Cold War playbook from the early-mid 80s, when, it so happens, Mother Jones was targeted as a Kremlin dupe. Featuring a lot of shadowy red-colored alien soldiers over an outline of Crimea, Mother Jones' donor-partner promotes a classic Cold War propaganda line about Russian/Soviet expansionism-a lie that has been the basis for so many wars launched to "stop" this alleged "expansionism" in the past, wars that Mother Jones is supposed to oppose. Here's what MJ's partner writes now:
RUSSIAN EXPANSION
Through unknowing manipulation, or by direct support, Trump will become an accessory to the continual expansionism committed by Putin. Might does not equal right-and it never has for Americans-but Putin's Russia plays by different rules. Or maybe no rules at all.
The communist/leftist imagery is there for a reason. In case you haven't noticed, Clinton supporters have waged a crude PR campaign to blame their candidate's loss on leftists, whom they equate with neo-Nazis and Trump. I've been smeared as "alt-left" by a Vanity Fair columnist, who equated me with Breitbart and other far-right journalists, for the crime of not sufficiently supporting Hillary Clinton. The larger goal of this crude PR effort is to equate opposition to Hillary Clinton with treason and Nazism. Which was exactly the goal of Reagan's "Kremlin disinformation" hysteria - the whole point was to smear critics of Reagan and his right-wing politics as pro-Kremlin traitors, whether they knew it or not.
* * *
What's kind of shocking to me as someone who was alive in the Reagan scare is how unoriginal this current one is. Even the words and the terminology are plagiarized from the Reagan Right witch-hunting campaign - "Kremlin active measures"; "Kremlin disinformation"; "Kremlin dupes" - terms introduced by right-wing novelists and intelligence hucksters, and repeated ad nauseam until they transformed into something plausible, giving quasi-academic cover to some very old-fashioned state repression, harassment, surveillance . . . and a lot of ruined lives. That's what happened last time, and if history is any guide, it's how this one will end up too.
Today we're supposed to remember how cheerful and optimistic the Reagan Era was. But that's now how I remember it, it's not how it looked to Mother Jones at the time - and it's not how it looks when you go back through the original source material again and relive it. The Reagan Era kicked off with a lot of dark fear-mongering about the Kremlin using disinformation and active measures to destroy our way of life. Everything that the conservative Establishment loathed about 1970s - defeat in Vietnam, Church Committee hearings gutting the CIA and FBI, the cult of Woodward & Bernstein & Hersh, peace marchers, minority rights radicals - was an "active measures" treason conspiracy.
As soon as the new Republican majority in the Senate took power in 1981, they set up a new subcommittee to investigate Kremlin disinformation dupes, called the Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism. Staffers leaked to the media they intended to investigate Mother Jones. Panic spread across the progressive media world, and suddenly all those cool Ivy League kids who invested everything in becoming the next Woodward-Bernsteins - the cultural heroes at the time - got scared. The image at the top of this article comes from a lead article in Columbia University's student newspaper, the Spectator, published a few weeks after Reagan took office, on SST committee's assault on Mother Jones. The headline read: The New McCarthyism / Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been and the the full-page article begins, If you subscribe to Mother Jones, give money to the American Civil Liberties Union, or support the Institute for Policy Studies, Senator Jeremiah Denton's new Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism may be interested in you.
It describes how in the 1970s Americans finally got rid of HUAC and the Senate Internal Security Committee, the Red Scare witch-hunting Congressional committees - only to have them revived one election cycle later in the Reagan Revolution.
By the end of Reagan's first year in office, there was still no formal investigation into Mother Jones, but the harassment was there and it wasn't subtle at all - such as the Republican Senate mailer accusing the magazine of being KGB disinformation dupes. At the end of 1981, MJ editor/founder Adam Hochschild announced he was stepping aside, and in his final note to readers and the public, he wrote:
To Senator Jeremiah Denton, chair of the Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism: If your committee investigates Mother Jones, a plan hinted at some months ago, I demand to be subpoenaed. I would not want to miss telling off today's new McCarthyites.
So here we are a few decades later, and Mother Jones' editor Clara Jeffery is denouncing WikiLeaks - yesterday's journalism stars, today's traitors - as "Russia['s] willing dupes and propagandists" while Mother Jones magazine turned itself into a mouthpiece for America's spies peddling the same warmed-over conspiracy theories that once targeted Mother Jones.
* * *
Jeremiah Denton - the New Right senator from Alabama who led the SST committee investigation into Kremlin "disinformation" and its dupes like Mother Jones - believed that America was being weakened from within and had only a few years left at most to turn it around. As Denton saw it, the two most dangerous threats to America's survival were a) hippie sex, and b) Kremlin disinformation. The two were inseparable in his mind, linked to the larger "global terrorism" plot masterminded by Moscow.
To fight hippie sex and teen promiscuity, the freshman senator introduced a "Chastity Bill" funding federal programs that promoted the joys of chastity to Americans armies of bored, teen suburban long-hairs. A lot of clever people laughed at that, because at the time the belief in linear historical progress was strong, and this represented something so atavistic that it was like a curiosity more than anything - Pauly Shore's "Alabama Man" unfrozen after 10,000 years and unleashed on the halls of Congress.
Less funny were Denton's calls for death penalty for adulterers, and laws he pushed restricting women's right to abortion.
Jeremiah Denton was once a big name in this country. Americans have since forgotten Denton, because John McCain pretty much stole his act. But back in the 70s and early 80s, Denton was America's most famous Vietnam War hero/POW. Like McCain, Denton was a Navy pilot shot down over Vietnam and taken prisoner. Denton spent 1965-1973 in North Vietnamese POW camps-two years longer than McCain-and he was America's most famous POW. His most famous moment was when his North Vietnamese captors hauled him before the cameras to acknowledge his crimes, and instead Denton famously blinked out a Morse code message: "T-O-R-T-U-R-E".
In the 1973 POW exchange deal between Hanoi and Nixon, "Operation Homecoming," it was Denton who was the first American POW to come off the plane and speak to the American tv crews (McCain was on the same flight, but not nearly as prominent as Denton). I keep referring back to McCain here because not only were they both famous Navy pilot POWs, but they both wind up becoming the most pathologically obsessive Russophobes in the Senate. Just a few days ago, McCain said that Russia is a bigger threat to America than Islamic State. Something real bad must've happened in those Hanoi Hiltons, worse than anything they told us about, because those guys really, really hate Russians - and they reallywant the rest of us to hate Russians too.
Everything they loathed about America, everything that was wrong with America, had to be the fault of a hostile alien culture. There was no other explanation for what happened in the 1970s. The America that Denton came home to in 1973 was under some kind of hostile power, an alien-controlled replica of the America he last saw in 1965. Popular morality had been turned on its head: Hollywood blockbusters with bare naked bodies and gutter language! Children against their parents! Homosexuals on waterskis! Sex and treason! Patriots were the enemy, while America-haters were heroes! Denton re-appeared like some reactionary Rip Van Winkle who went to sleep in the safe feather-bed world of J Edgar Hoover's America - only to wake up eight years later on Bernadine Dohrn's futon, soaked in Bill Ayers' bodily fluids. For Denton, the post-60s cultural shock came on all at once - as sudden and as jarring as, well, the shock so many Blue State Americans experienced when Donald Trump won the election last November.
Sex, immorality & military defeat-these were inseparable in Denton's mind, and in a lot of reactionaries' minds. Attributing all of America's social convulsions of the previous 15 years to immorality and a Kremlin disinformation plot was a neat way of avoiding the complex and painful realities - then, as now.
"No nation can survive long unless it can encourage its young to withhold indulgence in their sexual appetites until marriage." - Jeremiah Denton
What hit Denton hardest was all the hippie sex and the pop culture glorification of hippie sex. It's hard to convey just how deeply all that smug hippie sex wounded tens of millions of Americans. It's a hate wound that's still raw, still burns to the touch. A wound that fueled so much reactionary political fire over the past 50 years, and it doesn't look like it'll burn out any time soon.
Back in 1980, Denton blamed all that pop culture sex on Russian active measures, and he did his best to not just outlaw it, but to demonize sex as something along the lines of treason.
Just as so many people today cannot accept the idea that Trump_vs_deep_state is Made In America-so Denton and his Reagan Right constituents believed there had to be some alien force to explain why Americans had changed so drastically, seeming to adopt values that were the antithesis of Middle America's values in 1965. It had to be the fault of an alien voodoo beam! It had to be a Russian plot!
And so, therefore, it was a Russian plot.
A 1981 Time magazine profile of the freshman Senator begins, Denton believes that America is being destroyed by sexual immorality and Soviet-sponsored political 'disinformation'-and that both are being promoted by dupes, or worse, in the media. By the mid-1980s, he warns, "we will have less national security than we had proportionately when George Washington's troops were walking around barefoot at Valley Forge."
Sexual immorality -- it's a common theme in all the Russia panics of the past 100 years-whether the sexually liberated Emma Goldmans of the Red Scare, the homosexual-panic of the McCarthy witch-hunts, the hippie orgies of Denton's nightmares, or Trump's supposed golden shower fetish with immoral Russian prostitutes in our current panic. . . .
To fight the Kremlin disinformation demons, Denton set up the Senate Subcommittee on Security and Terrorism (SST), with two other young Republican senators-Orrin Hatch, who's still haunting Capitol Hill today; and John East of North Carolina, a Jesse Helms protege who later did his country a great service by committing suicide in his North Carolina garage, before the end of his first term in office in 1986.
Sen. East's staffers leaned Nazi-ward, like their boss. One Sen. East staffer was Samuel Francis - now famous as the godfather of the alt-Right, but who in 1981 was known as the guru behind the Senate's "Russia disinformation" witch hunt. Funny how that works - today's #Resistance takes its core idea, that America is under the control of hostile Kremlin disinformation sorcerers - is culturally appropriated from the alt-Right's guru.
Another staffer for Sen. East was John Rees, one of the most loathsome professional snitches of the post-McCarthy era, who collected files on suspected leftists, labor activists and liberal donors. I'll have to save John Rees for another post - he really belongs in a category by himself, proof of Schopenhauer's maxim that this world is run by demons.
These were the people who first cooked up the "disinformation" panic. You can't separate the Sam Francises, Orrin Hatches, John Easts et al from today's panic-mongering over disinformation - you can only try to make sense of why, what is it about our culture's ruling factions that brings them together on this sort of xenophobic witch-hunt, even when they see themselves as so diametrically opposed on so many other issues. I don't think this is something as simple as hypocrisy - it's actually quite consistent: Establishment faction wakes up to a world it doesn't recognize and loathes and feels threatened by, and blames it not on themselves or anything domestic, but rather on the most plausible alien conspiracy they can reach for: Russian barbarians. Anti-Russian xenophobia is burned into the Establishment culture's DNA; it's a xenophobia that both dominant factions, liberal or conservative, view as an acceptable xenophobia. When poorer "white working class" Americans feel threatened and panic, their xenophobia tends to be aimed at other ethnics - Latinos and Muslims these days - a xenophobia that the Establishment views as completely immoral and unacceptable, completely beyond the pale. The thought never occurs to them that perhaps all forms of xenophobia are bad, all bring with them a lot of violence and danger, it just depends on who's threatened and who's doing the threatening
The subversion scare and moral panic were crucial in resetting the culture for the Reagan counter-revolution. Those who opposed Reagan's plans, domestically and overseas, would be labeled "dupes" of Kremlin "active measures" and "disinformation" conspiracies, acting on behalf of Moscow whether they knew it or not. The panic incubated in Denton's subcommittee investigations provided political cover for vast new powers given to the CIA, FBI, NSA and other spy and police agencies to spy on Americans. Fighting Russian "active measures" grew over the years into a massive surveillance program against Americans, particularly anyone involved in opposing Reagan's dirty wars in Central America, anyone opposing nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants, and anyone involved in providing sanctuary to refugees from south of the border. The "active measures" panic even led to FBI secret investigations into liberal members of Congress, some of whom wound up in a secret "FBI terrorist photo album".
I'll get to that "FBI Terrorist Photo Album" story later. There's a lot of recent "Kremlin disinformation" history to recover, since it seems every last memory cell has been zapped out of existence.
After Reagan's inauguration (the most expensive, lavish inauguration ball in White House history), Senator Denton sent a chill through the liberal and independent media world with all the talk coming out of his committee about targeting activists, civil rights lawyers and journalists. Denton tried to come off as reasonable some of the times; other times, he came right out and said it: "disinformation" is terrorism: When I speak of a threat, I do not just mean that an organization is, or is about to be, engaged in violent criminal activity. I believe many share the view that support groups that produce propaganda, disinformation or legal assistance may be even more dangerous than those who actually throw the bombs.
Congratulations Mother Jones, you've come a long way, baby! Next post, I'll recover some of the early committee hearings, and the rightwing hucksters, creeps and spooks who fed Denton's committee.
glmmph , June 3, 2017 at 7:00 amDisturbed Voter , June 3, 2017 at 7:23 amI think that John McCain may well be correct, if for the wrong reasons. 'Russia is a bigger threat to America than Islamic State.' is almost certainly true. If one insists, as the US has done, on standing at the border of the bears lair and poking it with a very short stick, then there may well be consequences. On the other hand, Islamic State is no threat to the US in any way, shape or form.
John Zelnicker , June 3, 2017 at 3:18 pmThis is now, that was then. There is no comparison. The Cold War is over, so now the US can reveal its truly feral nature. It seems both parties are struggling to bring back the 1960s with Cold War 2.0. We need to pull out of the Middle East, and invade Vietnam, again ;-( And yes, probably even back then, Mother Jones was controlled opposition. They just don't bother hiding it anymore.
witters , June 3, 2017 at 7:29 am@Disturbed Voter – Dontcha know. We just signed deals with Viet Nam that will bring "billions of dollars" to the U.S. Trump said so last week after meeting with the Vietnamese Prime Minister, so it must be true. They're safe for now. :-)
Disturbed Voter , June 3, 2017 at 9:30 am"Might does not equal right-and it never has for Americans-" Is there a Darwin Award for this?
oh , June 3, 2017 at 3:18 pmAmerican slogan Violence R Us. Not judging, just being honest. We were no more interested in the common good of the Vietnamese back then, any more than we are interested in the common good of the Syrians today.
Baby Gerald , June 3, 2017 at 8:16 amOur nation worries about other countries' problems but we never care about ours! It's always 'Russia this, Russia that', how we're going to bring democracy to some other part of the world, how some country's leader is a dictator. These are excuses we can do reverse Robin Hood wherever we can and enrich the 1%.
Magazines (tabloids) and (fake)news organization are cheer leaders to this effort because they cash in on the chant du jour.
Damson , June 3, 2017 at 8:40 amThank you so much for exposing in such great detail the hypocrisy regarding MJ s recent neo-Red Scare leanings. If only the editorial staff at dear MJ would educate themselves not only about their own organization's history, but history in general, they might avoid looking like complete fools and enemies to their own institution's founding principles when we collectively reminisce on this bizarre era at some point in the future.
It's my duty to point out that the glaring similarities in this brand of cold war Russophobia with that of pre-WW2 anti-Comintern material coming out of Nazi Germany (or even the anti-Semitic material from the early 1900s) are no coincidence.
Among the Nazi intelligence officers and scientists we spirited away before the Russians could get their hands on them [ Operation Paperclip ] were a few sly operators who immediately started filling our elected leaders' ears with stories of Reds under the bed. One of these reps was Senator Joe McCarthy and the rest, as they say
American-produced historical documentaries tell it like we were united as a country in support of Stalin against Hitler. This reluctance is usually credited to not wanting to get into another bloodbath like WW1 but let's be straight- about half the country (proto-deplorables?) wanted nothing to do with helping the commies beat the Nazis and actually thought the Germans weren't the bad guys. Anti-communism, big brother to anti-unionism and first cousin to anti-Semitism, was all the rage before we helped Uncle Joe beat Hitler, making it all the easier to revive after the war was over and it looked like the only threat to US world domination was a war-weakened Soviet Union.
As a kid in the 80s I remember MJ being singled out as a leftist commie rag by Reaganites of the day. Through college this was about all I knew about the magazine– as an epithet for what hippie commie liberals read before trying to ruin our country. Despite it leaning to my political inclinations, I never paid it any attention.
A few years ago, with the advent of internet freeness, I'd added MJ to my news stream. Once Sanders- then later Trump- started looking like an actual threat to the Clinton campaign, their headlines started turning snippy and trite toward her opposition. I turned them off my feed last year, so the only exposure to their drivel is thanks to the links here at NC . Now with the advent of twitter, their staff have taken the extra step of proving how twisted their personal Russophobian views really are. Between just Corn and Jeffery, there's enough material to make any McCarthyite proud.*
[* – I was going to close with ' and make Adam Hochschild roll in his grave' but then I googled him and discovered that he's still alive. Wonder what he thinks about this current turn at the magazine he co-founded?]
nowhere , June 3, 2017 at 11:26 amReposting a comment that IMV, snapshots the reality of Russophobia far better than Ames (it was in response to a Ray McGovern article on Trump's visit to NATO HQ) :
"Ray has written well to the general audience, bridging the information gap for those heavily propagandized. He has properly shown the expansion of NATO as an act of calculated betrayal, a policy of aggression in the face of zero threat.
It is sensible but really too polite to say that NATO expanded because "that is what bureaucracies do and it became a way for U.S. presidents to show their 'toughness.'" To expand a bureaucracy by subversion of Ukraine and false reports of Russian aggression, to show toughness by aggression rather than defense, requires the mad power grasping of tyrants in the military, the intel agencies, the NSC, the administration, Congress. and the mass media.
They are joined in a tyranny of inventing foreign monsters, to pose falsely as protectors, and to accuse their moral superiors of disloyalty, as Aristotle warned. This is the domestic political power grab of tyrants, a far greater danger.
Tyranny is a subculture, a groupthink of bullies who tyrannize each other and compete for the most radical propositions of nonexistent foreign threats. They fully well know that they are lying to the people of the United States to serve a personal and factional agenda that involves the murder of millions of innocents, the diversion of a very large fraction of their own and other nations' budgets from essential needs, and they have not an ounce of humanity or moral restraint among them. Those who waver are cast aside, and the worst of the bullies rise to the top. This is why the nation's founders opposed a standing military, and they were right.
Apart from NATO and a few other treaties, the US would have no constitutional power to wage foreign wars, just to repel invasions and suppress insurrections, and that is the way it should be. Any treaty becomes part of the Supreme Law of the land, and must be rigorously restricted to defense, with provisions for international resolution of conflicts. NATO has been nothing but an excuse for warmongering since 1989.
Let us hope that Trump pulls the plug on NATO interventionism, accidentally or otherwise. The Dem leaders have now joined the Reps in their love of bribes for genocide, but at the least the Reps still don't like paying for it. Perhaps the last duopoly imitation of civilization."
Ptolemy Philopater , June 3, 2017 at 3:15 pmHmm "but at the least the Reps still don't like paying for it." I strongly disagree. War is the only thing Rs don't mind openly supporting.
Skip Intro , June 4, 2017 at 2:14 amOne can not repeat often enough: War Crimes Tribunals! How to disincentivize the madness.
Mary Wehrhein , June 3, 2017 at 9:40 amI think this is much closer to the mark than the association of the anti-russia fearmongering with sincere xenophobia. Russia is the go-to foreign enemy because there is such a huge and convenient stockpile of propaganda material lying around in stockpiles, but left unused because of the tragic and abrupt end of Cold War 1.0. And Russia is a great target because it is distant, and has a weird alphabet. Anyone who knows enough about Russia to contradict the disinformation (like by mentioning that they are not commies, but US-style authoritarian oligarchs) is suspicious ipso facto .
GERMO , June 3, 2017 at 9:42 amHaving lived in Kansas for 60 some years which is the poster-child for trickle-down necromancy and a land heavily infused with rural, German-Catholic sensibilities, I can vouch for the deeply felt attitudes towards sex as a primary issue. "Family Values" being the code word for the whole sex and reproductive moral prism.
Like Cuba with its 50s autos, the conservatives have never given up their 60s conception of the Democrats as the party of free love, peace-nicks (soft on commies hard on guns) and tax and spend bleeding hearts coddling dependent malingerers.
The GOP here campaigns against a democrat party that no longer exists (if it ever did). They seem oblivious to the fact that the democrats have become the moderate republicans of yore. Both parties being pro wall street deficit and war hawks differing in perhaps degree .with the Demos supporting a more generous portion of calf's foot jelly being distributed to peasants of more varied hue as they also support privatization, more subtle tax cuts and deregulation for the rich, R2P wars, and globalization's race to the bottom. People seem to inhabit their own Plato's Cave each opposing their own particular artfully projected phantom menace.
Pespi , June 3, 2017 at 10:33 amBrilliant, as Ames usually is. Especially the point that this is a manifestation of consistent anti-left sentiment within the establishment whether R or D. The confounding of Putin's Russia with some imagined communist threat always amazes me. D's got to keep up the hippie-punching at all times though!
Susan the other , June 3, 2017 at 11:25 amThis is a great piece. The Russophobia is stuck on an endless loop. I wish they'd at least come up with new lies or some fresh enemy for us all to fear. Tell me about why South African dupes are causing all the problems in society, tell me that the people of the Maldives each own a nuclear capable artillery piece and are burning American flags.
Susan the other , June 3, 2017 at 2:28 pmThanks for this post down memory lane. I assumed MJ was liberal. And Jane Fonda was a conservative. And by 1981 I was completely confused about where the media stood on any given issue. And now finally the mask is coming off and we can see (Phillip K. Dick style) that left is right and right is left. And we are all fascists. Will the real Atilla please stand up? #Resistance is a little over the top and so is putintrump. But what looks like actual progress is the fact that Bernie was not completely destroyed by the state paranoia. There has to be a certain bed-rock decency that can rise above this eternal crap. Just a note of interest on the young Orrin Hatch being on the SST as a freshman senator. Orrin was the subject of local rumors that claimed he had been put in the senate by the mafia (some mormon-mafia connection in las vegas) and the fact that they did use entrapment with a hooker to disgrace his opponent was mafia-enough to make the story convincing. The story died out fast. But we should all remember that the mafia was involved in its own anti-commie terrorist tactics for decades.
John Zelnicker , June 3, 2017 at 2:45 pmfile under Too Weird: 15 minutes after I posted the above I got a call from Orrin Hatch's robo-computer inviting me to a local discussion call me paranoid.
REDPILLED , June 3, 2017 at 11:39 am@Susan the other – It's not paranoia if someone really is out to get you. Or, to get all of us. Or, demonstrates that they have the ability to do so at will.
Susan the other , June 3, 2017 at 11:42 amOnly 16% of people surveyed are very worried about climate change.
Corporate news is consumed with covering the Trump/Russia affair, but whatever the truth of all this turns out to be, it pales in significance to the real existential threat that is upon us. Largely due to a lack of coverage by corporate television news, there is a dangerous lack of public awareness of it.
mpalomar , June 3, 2017 at 9:43 pmland of the free and home of the brave you have to be brave to live in this free-for-all. Just want to pass on this killer quote from Discover Magazine: "It is sometimes argued that the illusion of free will arises from the fact that we can't adequately judge all possible moves with the result that our choices are based on imperfect or impoverished information." what a nightmare world.
sunny129 , June 3, 2017 at 1:57 pm"It is sometimes argued that the illusion of free will arises from the fact that we can't adequately judge all possible moves with the result that our choices are based on imperfect or impoverished information."
Accepting that premise does not rule out the possibility of free will, it only suggests that our free will is likely mired in a blind stumbling, darkness of unknowing.
Hallelujah.Darn , June 4, 2017 at 4:48 amIf liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. George Orwell. Every one has that 'right', right or wrong! But it is your right & duty to develop 'critical' thinking to DISCERN the difference
Without defending Trump, it is wrong of the Dems to push this stuff when Ukrainians helped Clinton's campaign and Clinton approved Uranium One getting 20% of US uranium when they gave $100 million to the Foundation. The book "Shattered" says her campaign did internal polling which found Uranium One was the most damaging line to use against Clinton so she decided to get her retaliation in first and use the Russia charge at every opportunity. And on election night when they realised they had been defeated they decided to blame Russia again. What has Trump done for Russia so far? He's kept up sanctions and bombed their client state Syria. Whereas Clinton had a pattern of arms sales to Foundation donors. Prefer Clinton? Fine, but not over this.
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Sep 23, 2017 | ronpaulinstitute.org
The Exit Strategy of Empire Written y Friday September 22, 2017The Roman Empire never doubted that it was the defender of civilization. Its good intentions were peace, law and order. The Spanish Empire added salvation. The British Empire added the noble myth of the white man's burden. We have added freedom and democracy.The first step in creating Empire is to morally justify the invasion and occupation of another nation even if it poses no credible or substantial threat. But if that's the entering strategy, what is the exit one?-- Garet Garrett, Rise of Empire
One approach to answering is to explore how Empire has arisen through history and whether the process can be reversed. Another is to conclude that no exit is possible; an Empire inevitably self-destructs under the increasing weight of what it is -- a nation exercising ultimate authority over an array of satellite states. Empires are vulnerable to overreach, rebellion, war, domestic turmoil, financial exhaustion, and competition for dominance.
In his monograph Rise of Empire, the libertarian journalist Garet Garrett (1878–1954), lays out a blueprint for how Empire could possibly be reversed as well as the reason he believes reversal would not occur. Garrett was in a unique position to comment insightfully on the American empire because he'd had a front-row seat to events that cemented its status: World War II and the Cold War. World War II America already had a history of conquest and occupation, of course, but, during the mid to late 20th century, the nation became a self-consciously and unapologetic empire with a self-granted mandate to spread its ideology around the world.
A path to reversing Empire
Garrett identifies the first five components of Empire:
These are not sequential stages of Empire but occur in conjunction with one another and reinforce each other. That means that an attempt to reverse Empire in the direction of a Republic can begin with weakening any of the five characteristics in any order.
- The dominance of executive power: the White House reigns over Congress and the judiciary.
- The subordination of domestic concerns to foreign policy: civil and economic liberties give way to military needs.
- The rise of a military mentality: aggressive patriotism and obedience are exalted.
- A system of satellite nations (vassals) in the name of collective security ;
- A zeitgeist of both zealous patriotism and fear : bellicosity is mixed with and sustained by panic.
Garrett did not directly address the strategy of undoing Empire, but his description of its creation can be used to good advantage. The first step is to break down each component of Empire into more manageable chunks. For example, the executive branch accumulates power in various ways. They include:
Deconstructing these executive props, one by one, weakens the Empire. When all five components are deconstructing, the process presents a possible path to dissolving Empire itself.
- By delegation -- Congress transfers its constitutional powers to the president.
- By reinterpretation of the Constitution by a sympathetic Supreme Court.
- Through innovation by which the president assumes powers that are not constitutionally forbidden because the Framers never considered them.
- By administrative agencies that issue regulations with the force of law.
- Through usurpation -- the president confronts Congress with a fait accompli that cannot easily be repudiated.Entanglement in foreign affairs makes presidential power swell because, both by tradition and the Constitution, foreign affairs are his authority.
A sixth component of Empire
But in Rise of Empire, Garet Garrett offers a chilling assessment based on his sixth component of Empire. There is no path out. A judgment that renders prevention all the more essential.
That was why Garrett does not deal with how to reverse the process of Empire. Once an empire is established, he argues, it becomes a "prisoner of history" in a trap of its own making. He writes, "A Republic may change its course, or reverse it, and that will be its own business. But the history of Empire is a world history and belongs to many people. A Republic is not obliged to act upon the world, either to change it or instruct it. Empire, on the other hand, must put forth its power."
In his book For A New Liberty, Murray Rothbard expands on Garrett's point: "[The] United States, like previous empires, feel[s] itself to be 'a prisoner of history.' For beyond fear lies 'collective security,' and the playing of the supposedly destined American role upon the world stage."
Collective security and fear are intimately connected concepts. It is no coincidence that the sixth component of Empire -- imprisonment -- comes directly after the two components of "a system of satellite nations" and, "a complex of vaunting and fear."
Satellite nations
"We speak of our own satellites as allies and friends or as freedom loving nations," Garrett wrote. "Nevertheless, satellite is the right word. The meaning of it is the hired guard." Why hired? Although men of Empire speak of losing China [or] Europe [how] could we lose China or Europe, since they never belonged to us? What they mean is that we may lose a following of dependent people who act as an outer guard."
An empire thinks that satellites are necessary for its collective security. Satellites think the empire is necessary for territorial and economic survival; but they are willing to defect if an empire with a better deal beckons. America knows this and scrambles to satisfy satellites that could become fickle. Garrett quotes Harry Truman, who created America's modern system of satellites. "We must make sure that our friends and allies overseas continue to get the help they need to make their full contribution to security and progress for the whole free world. This means not only military aid -- though that is vital -- it also means real programs of economic and technical assistance."
In contrast to a Republic, Empire is both a master and a servant because foreign pressure cements it into the military and economic support of satellite nations around the globe, all of which have their own agendas.
Garrett also emphasizes how domestic pressure imprisons Empire. One of the most powerful domestic pressures is fear. An atmosphere of fear -- real or created -- drives public support of foreign policy and makes it more difficult for Empire to retreat from those policies. In his introduction to Garrett's book Ex America, Bruce Ramsey addresses Garrett's point. Ramsey writes, Empire has "'less control over its own fate than a republic,' he [Garrett] commented because it was a 'prisoner of history', ruled by fear. Fear of what? 'Fear of the barbarian.'"
It does not matter whether the enemy is actually a barbarian. What matters is that citizens of Empire believe in the enemy's savagery and support a military posture toward him. Domestic fear drives the constant politics of satellite nations, protective treaties, police actions, and war. Foreign entanglements lead to increased global involvement and deeper commitments. The two reinforce each other.
The fifth characteristic of Empire is not merely fear but also "vaunting." Vaunting means boasting about or praising something excessively -- for example, to laud and exaggerate America's role in the world. Fear provides the emotional impetus for conquest; vaunting provides the moral justification for acting upon the fear. The moral duty is variously phrased: leadership, a balance of power, peace, democracy, the preservation of civilization, humanitarianism. From this point, it is a small leap to conclude that the ends sanctify the means. Garrett observes that "there is soon a point from which there is no turning back .The argument for going on is well known. As Woodrow Wilson once asked, 'Shall we break the heart of the world?' So now many are saying, 'We cannot let the free world down'. Moral leadership of the world is not a role you step into and out of as you like."
Conclusion
In this manner, Garrett believed, Empire imprisons itself in the trap of a perpetual war for peace and stability, which are always stated goals. Yet, as Garrett concluded, the reality is war and instability.
It is not clear whether he was correct that Empire could not be reversed. Whether or not he was, it is at its creation that Empire is best opposed.
Reprinted with permission from the Future of Freedom Foundation .
Related
- The Airwaves Are Still Heaving With Spin Two Days After US Airstrikes Against Syria - 26 September 2014
- The Real Status of Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq - 5 October 2014
- Presidents and the War Power - 8 October 2014
- The Siege Of Kobani: Obama's Syrian Fiasco In Motion - 6 October 2014
- Is Obama Misleading the World to War? Depends How You Define 'Misleading' - 26 September 2014
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Sep 15, 2017 | www.unz.com
Introduction
Clearly the US has escalated the pivotal role of the military in the making of foreign and, by extension, domestic policy. The rise of ' the Generals' to strategic positions in the Trump regime is evident, deepening its role as a highly autonomous force determining US strategic policy agendas.
In this paper we will discuss the advantages that the military elite accumulate from the war agenda and the reasons why ' the Generals' have been able to impose their definition of international realities.
We will discuss the military's ascendancy over Trump's civilian regime as a result of the relentless degradation of his presidency by his political opposition.
The Prelude to Militarization: Obama's Multi-War Strategy and Its Aftermath
The central role of the military in deciding US foreign policy has its roots in the strategic decisions taken during the Obama-Clinton Presidency. Several policies were decisive in the rise of unprecedented military-political power.
The massive increase of US troops in Afghanistan and their subsequent failures and retreat weakened the Obama-Clinton regime and increased animosity between the military and the Obama's Administration. As a result of his failures, Obama downgraded the military and weakened Presidential authority. The massive US-led bombing and destruction of Libya, the overthrow of the Gadhafi government and the failure of the Obama-Clinton administration to impose a puppet regime, underlined the limitations of US air power and the ineffectiveness of US political-military intervention. The Presidency blundered in its foreign policy in North Africa and demonstrated its military ineptness. The invasion of Syria by US-funded mercenaries and terrorists committed the US to an unreliable ally in a losing war. This led to a reduction in the military budget and encouraged the Generals to view their direct control of overseas wars and foreign policy as the only guarantee of their positions. The US military intervention in Iraq was only a secondary contributing factor in the defeat of ISIS; the major actors and beneficiaries were Iran and the allied Iraqi Shia militias. The Obama-Clinton engineered coup and power grab in the Ukraine brought a corrupt incompetent military junta to power in Kiev and provoked the secession of the Crimea (to Russia) and Eastern Ukraine (allied with Russia). The Generals were sidelined and found that they had tied themselves to Ukrainian kleptocrats while dangerously increasing political tensions with Russia. The Obama regime dictated economic sanctions against Moscow, designed to compensate for their ignominious military-political failures.The Obama-Clinton legacy facing Trump was built around a three-legged stool: an international order based on military aggression and confrontation with Russia; a ' pivot to Asia' defined as the military encirclement and economic isolation of China – via bellicose threats and economic sanctions against North Korea; and the use of the military as the praetorian guards of free trade agreements in Asia excluding China.
The Obama 'legacy' consists of an international order of globalized capital and multiple wars. The continuity of Obama's 'glorious legacy' initially depended on the election of Hillary Clinton.
Donald Trump's presidential campaign, for its part, promised to dismantle or drastically revise the Obama Doctrine of an international order based on multiple wars , neo-colonial 'nation' building and free trade. A furious Obama 'informed' (threatened) the newly-elected President Trump that he would face the combined hostility of the entire State apparatus, Wall Street and the mass media if he proceeded to fulfill his election promises of economic nationalism and thus undermine the US-centered global order.
Trump's bid to shift from Obama's sanctions and military confrontation to economic reconciliation with Russia was countered by a hornet's nest of accusations about a Trump-Russian electoral conspiracy, darkly hinting at treason and show trials against his close allies and even family members.
The concoction of a Trump-Russia plot was only the first step toward a total war on the new president, but it succeeded in undermining Trump's economic nationalist agenda and his efforts to change Obama's global order.
Trump Under Obama's International Order
After only 8 months in office President Trump helplessly gave into the firings, resignations and humiliation of each and every one of his civilian appointees, especially those who were committed to reverse Obama's 'international order'.
Trump was elected to replace wars, sanctions and interventions with economic deals beneficial to the American working and middle class. This would include withdrawing the military from its long-term commitments to budget-busting 'nation-building' (occupation) in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and other Obama-designated endless war zones.
Trump's military priorities were supposed to focus on strengthening domestic frontiers and overseas markets. He started by demanding that NATO partners pay for their own military defense responsibilities. Obama's globalists in both political parties were aghast that the US might lose it overwhelming control of NATO; they united and moved immediately to strip Trump of his economic nationalist allies and their programs.
Trump quickly capitulated and fell into line with Obama's international order, except for one proviso – he would select the Cabinet to implement the old/new international order.
A hamstrung Trump chose a military cohort of Generals, led by General James Mattis (famously nicknamed ' Mad Dog' ) as Defense Secretary.
The Generals effectively took over the Presidency. Trump abdicated his responsibilities as President.
General Mattis: The Militarization of America
General Mattis took up the Obama legacy of global militarization and added his own nuances, including the 'psychological-warfare' embedded in Trump's emotional ejaculations on 'Twitter'.
The ' Mattis Doctrine' combined high-risk threats with aggressive provocations, bringing the US (and the world) to the brink of nuclear war.
General Mattis has adopted the targets and fields of operations, defined by the previous Obama administration as it has sought to re-enforce the existing imperialist international order.
The junta's policies relied on provocations and threats against Russia, with expanded economic sanctions. Mattis threw more fuel on the US mass media's already hysterical anti-Russian bonfire. The General promoted a strategy of low intensity diplomatic thuggery, including the unprecedented seizure and invasion of Russian diplomatic offices and the short-notice expulsion of diplomats and consular staff.
These military threats and acts of diplomatic intimidation signified that the Generals' Administration under the Puppet President Trump was ready to sunder diplomatic relations with a major world nuclear power and indeed push the world to direct nuclear confrontation.
What Mattis seeks in these mad fits of aggression is nothing less than capitulation on the part of the Russian government regarding long held US military objectives – namely the partition of Syria (which started under Obama), harsh starvation sanctions on North Korea (which began under Clinton) and the disarmament of Iran (Tel Aviv's main goal) in preparation for its dismemberment.
The Mattis junta occupying the Trump White House heightened its threats against a North Korea, which (in Vladimir Putin's words) ' would rather eat grass than disarm' . The US mass media-military megaphones portrayed the North Korean victims of US sanctions and provocations as an 'existential' threat to the US mainland.
Sanctions have intensified. The stationing of nuclear weapons on South Korea is being pushed. Massive joint military exercises are planned and ongoing in the air, sea and land around North Korea. Mattis twisted Chinese arms (mainly business comprador-linked bureaucrats) and secured their UN Security Council vote on increased sanctions. Russia joined the Mattis-led anti-Pyongyang chorus, even as Putin warned of sanctions ineffectiveness! (As if General ' Mad Dog' Mattis would ever take Putin's advice seriously, especially after Russia voted for the sanctions!)
Mattis further militarized the Persian Gulf, following Obama's policy of partial sanctions and bellicose provocation against Iran.
When he worked for Obama, Mattis increased US arms shipments to the US's Syrian terrorists and Ukrainian puppets, ensuring the US would be able to scuttle any ' negotiated settlements' .
Militarization: An Evaluation
Trump's resort to ' his Generals' is supposed to counter any attacks from members of his own party and Congressional Democrats about his foreign policy. Trump's appointment of ' Mad Dog' Mattis, a notorious Russophobe and warmonger, has somewhat pacified the opposition in Congress and undercut any 'finding' of an election conspiracy between Trump and Moscow dug up by the Special Investigator Robert Mueller. Trump's maintains a role as nominal President by adapting to what Obama warned him was ' their international order' – now directed by an unelected military junta composed of Obama holdovers!
The Generals provide a veneer of legitimacy to the Trump regime (especially for the warmongering Obama Democrats and the mass media). However, handing presidential powers over to ' Mad Dog' Mattis and his cohort will come with a heavy price.
While the military junta may protect Trump's foreign policy flank, it does not lessen the attacks on his domestic agenda. Moreover, Trump's proposed budget compromise with the Democrats has enraged his own Party's leaders.
In sum, under a weakened President Trump, the militarization of the White House benefits the military junta and enlarges their power. The ' Mad Dog' Mattis program has had mixed results, at least in its initial phase: The junta's threats to launch a pre-emptive (possibly nuclear) war against North Korea have strengthened Pyongyang's commitment to develop and refine its long and medium range ballistic missile capability and nuclear weapons. Brinksmanship failed to intimidate North Korea. Mattis cannot impose the Clinton-Bush-Obama doctrine of disarming countries (like Libya and Iraq) of their advanced defensive weapons systems as a prelude to a US 'regime change' invasion.
Any US attack against North Korea will lead to massive retaliatory strikes costing tens of thousands of US military lives and will kill and maim millions of civilians in South Korea and Japan.
At most, ' Mad Dog' managed to intimidate Chinese and Russian officials (and their export business billionaire buddies) to agree to more economic sanctions against North Korea. Mattis and his allies in the UN and White House, the loony Nikki Hailey and a miniaturized President Trump, may bellow war – yet they cannot apply the so-called 'military option' without threatening the US military forces stationed throughout the Asia Pacific region.
The Mad Dog Mattis assault on the Russian embassy did not materially weaken Russia, but it has revealed the uselessness of Moscow's conciliatory diplomacy toward their so-called 'partners' in the Trump regime.
The end-result might lead to a formal break in diplomatic ties, which would increase the danger of a military confrontation and a global nuclear holocaust.
The military junta is pressuring China against North Korea with the goal of isolating the ruling regime in Pyongyang and increasing the US military encirclement of Beijing. Mad Dog has partially succeeded in turning China against North Korea while securing its advanced THADD anti-missile installations in South Korea, which will be directed against Beijing. These are Mattis' short-term gains over the excessively pliant Chinese bureaucrats. However, if Mad Dog intensifies direct military threats against China, Beijing can retaliate by dumping tens of billions of US Treasury notes, cutting trade ties, sowing chaos in the US economy and setting Wall Street against the Pentagon.
Mad Dog's military build-up, especially in Afghanistan and in the Middle East, will not intimidate Iran nor add to any military successes. They entail high costs and low returns, as Obama realized after the better part of a decade of his defeats, fiascos and multi-billion dollar losses.
Conclusion
The militarization of US foreign policy, the establishment of a military junta within the Trump Administration, and the resort to nuclear brinksmanship has not changed the global balance of power.
Domestically Trump's nominal Presidency relies on militarists, like General Mattis. Mattis has tightened the US control over NATO allies, and even rounded up stray European outliers, like Sweden, to join in a military crusade against Russia. Mattis has played on the media's passion for bellicose headlines and its adulation of Four Star Generals.
But for all that – North Korea remains undaunted because it can retaliate. Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and remains a counterweight to a US-dominated globe. China owns the US Treasury and its unimpressed, despite the presence of an increasingly collision-prone US Navy swarming throughout the South China Sea.
Mad Dog laps up the media attention, with well dressed, scrupulously manicured journalists hanging on his every bloodthirsty pronouncement. War contractors flock to him, like flies to carrion. The Four Star General 'Mad Dog' Mattis has attained Presidential status without winning any election victory (fake or otherwise). No doubt when he steps down, Mattis will be the most eagerly courted board member or senior consultant for giant military contractors in US history, receiving lucrative fees for half hour 'pep-talks' and ensuring the fat perks of nepotism for his family's next three generations. Mad Dog may even run for office, as Senator or even President for whatever Party.
The militarization of US foreign policy provides some important lessons:
First of all, the escalation from threats to war does not succeed in disarming adversaries who possess the capacity to retaliate. Intimidation via sanctions can succeed in imposing significant economic pain on oil export-dependent regimes, but not on hardened, self-sufficient or highly diversified economies.
Low intensity multi-lateral war maneuvers reinforce US-led alliances, but they also convince opponents to increase their military preparedness. Mid-level intense wars against non-nuclear adversaries can seize capital cities, as in Iraq, but the occupier faces long-term costly wars of attrition that can undermine military morale, provoke domestic unrest and heighten budget deficits. And they create millions of refugees.
High intensity military brinksmanship carries major risk of massive losses in lives, allies, territory and piles of radiated ashes – a pyrrhic victory!
In sum:
Threats and intimidation succeed only against conciliatory adversaries. Undiplomatic verbal thuggery can arouse the spirit of the bully and some of its allies, but it has little chance of convincing its adversaries to capitulate. The US policy of worldwide militarization over-extends the US armed forces and has not led to any permanent military gains.
Are there any voices among clear-thinking US military leaders, those not bedazzled by their stars and idiotic admirers in the US media, who could push for more global accommodation and mutual respect among nations? The US Congress and the corrupt media are demonstrably incapable of evaluating past disasters, let alone forging an effective response to new global realities.
Raffler, September 15, 2017 at 2:25 pm GMT
nsa, September 16, 2017 at 4:03 am GMTAmerican actions in Europe, Asia and the middle east appear increasingly irrational to many international observers. Their policy thrusts are excused as containment of evildoers or punishment of peoples who think and act differently. Those policy thrusts will accomplish the opposite of the stated intention.
They will drive into a new detente such incompatible parties as Russia and Iran, or China and many countries. America risks losing its way in the world and free peoples see a flickering beacon that once shone brighter.
KA, September 16, 2017 at 3:24 pm GMTAnyone with military experience recognizes the likes of Mad Poodle Mattis arrogant, belligerent, exceptionally dull, and mainly an inveterate suck-up (mil motto: kiss up and kick down).
Every VFW lounge is filled with these boozy ridiculous blowhards and they are insufferable. The media and public, raised on ZioVision and JooieWood pablum, worship these cartoonish bloodletters even though they haven't won a war in 72 years .not one.
How about this comic book tough guy quote: "I'm pleading with you with tears in my eyes: if you fuck with me, I'll kill you all" notice the first person used repetitively as he talks down to hapless unarmed tribesman in some distant land. A real egomaniacal narcissistic coward. Any of you with military experience would immediately recognize the type ...
The Alarmist, September 19, 2017 at 3:27 pm GMTIt seems that the inevitable has happened. Feckless civilians have used military adventures to advance their careers , ensure re- elections, capturr lucrative position as speaker, have a place as member of think tank or lobbying firm or consultant . Now being as stupidly greedy and impatient as these guys are, they have failed to see that neither the policies nor the militaries can succeed against enemies that are generated from the action and the policy itself .
Now military has decided to reverse the roles . At least the military leaders don't have to campaign for re employment . But very soon the forces that corrupt and abuse the civilian power structure will do same to military .
Never met him at any of the parties I attended in the '70s and '80s, so I don't know much about Mad Dog, but I can say that only in America can the former commander of a recruiting station grow up to pull the strings of the President.
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Sep 18, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
Trump was seen as a presidential candidate who would possibly move towards a less interventionist foreign policy. That hope is gone. The insurgency that brought Trump to the top was defeated by a counter-insurgency campaign waged by the U.S. military. (Historically its first successful one). The military has taken control of the White House process and it is now taking control of its policies.
It is schooling Trump on globalism and its "indispensable" role in it. Trump was insufficiently supportive of their desires and thus had to undergo reeducation:
When briefed on the diplomatic, military and intelligence posts, the new president would often cast doubt on the need for all the resources. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson organized the July 20 session to lay out the case for maintaining far-flung outposts -- and to present it, using charts and maps, in a way the businessman-turned-politician would appreciateTrump was hauled into a Pentagon basement 'tank' and indoctrinated by the glittering four-star generals he admired since he was a kid:
The session was, in effect, American Power 101 and the student was the man working the levers. It was part of the ongoing education of a president who arrived at the White House with no experience in the military or government and brought with him advisers deeply skeptical of what they labeled the "globalist" worldview. In coordinated efforts and quiet conversations, some of Trump's aides have worked for months to counter that view, hoping the president can be persuaded to maintain -- if not expand -- the American footprint and influence abroadTrump was sold the establishment policies he originally despised. No alternative view was presented to him.
It is indisputable that the generals are now ruling in Washington DC. They came to power over decades by shaping culture through their sponsorship of Hollywood, by manipulating the media through "embedded" reporting and by forming and maintaining the countries infrastructure through the Army Corps of Engineers. The military, through the NSA as well as through its purchasing power , controls the information flow on the internet. Until recently the military establishment only ruled from behind the scene. The other parts of the power triangle , the corporation executives and the political establishment, were more visible and significant. But during the 2016 election the military bet on Trump and is now, after he unexpectedly won, collecting its price.
Trump's success as the "Not-Hillary" candidate was based on an anti-establishment insurgency. Representatives of that insurgency, Flynn, Bannon and the MAGA voters, drove him through his first months in office. An intense media campaign was launched to counter them and the military took control of the White House. The anti-establishment insurgents were fired. Trump is now reduced to public figure head of a stratocracy - a military junta which nominally follows the rule of law.
Stephen Kinzer describes this as America's slow-motion military coup:Ultimate power to shape American foreign and security policy has fallen into the hands of three military men [...]
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Being ruled by generals seems preferable to the alternative. It isn't.
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[It] leads toward a distorted set of national priorities, with military "needs" always rated more important than domestic ones.
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It is no great surprise that Trump has been drawn into the foreign policy mainstream; the same happened to President Obama early in his presidency. More ominous is that Trump has turned much of his power over to generals. Worst of all, many Americans find this reassuring. They are so disgusted by the corruption and shortsightedness of our political class that they turn to soldiers as an alternative. It is a dangerous temptation.The country has fallen to that temptation even on social-economic issues:
In the wake of the deadly racial violence in Charlottesville this month, five of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were hailed as moral authorities for condemning hate in less equivocal terms than the commander in chief did.
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On social policy, military leaders have been voices for moderation.The junta is bigger than its three well known leaders:
Kelly, Mattis and McMaster are not the only military figures serving at high levels in the Trump administration. CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke each served in various branches of the military, and Trump recently tapped former Army general Mark S. Inch to lead the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
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the National Security Council [..] counts two other generals on the senior staff.This is no longer a Coup Waiting to Happen The coup has happened with few noticing it and ever fewer concerned about it. Everything of importance now passes through the Junta's hands:
[Chief of staff John] Kelly initiated a new policymaking process in which just he and one other aide [...] will review all documents that cross the Resolute desk.
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The new system [..] is designed to ensure that the president won't see any external policy documents, internal policy memos, agency reports and even news articles that haven't been vetted.To control Trump the junta filters his information input and eliminates any potentially alternative view:
Staff who oppose [policy xyz] no longer have unfettered access to Trump, and nor do allies on the outside [.. .] Kelly now has real control over the most important input: the flow of human and paper advice into the Oval Office. For a man as obsessed about his self image as Trump, a new flow of inputs can make the world of difference.The Trump insurgency against the establishment was marked by a mostly informal information and decision process. That has been destroyed and replaced:
Worried that Trump would end existing US spending/policies (largely, still geared to cold war priorities), the senior military staff running the Trump administration launched a counter-insurgency against the insurgency.
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General Kelly, Trump's Chief of Staff, has put Trump on a establishment-only media diet.
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In short, by controlling Trump's information flow with social media/networks, the generals smashed the insurgency's OODA loop (observe, orient, decide, act). Deprived of this connection, Trump is now weathervaning to cater to the needs of the establishment ...The Junta members dictate their policies to Trump by only proposing to him certain alternatives. The one that is most preferable to them will be presented as the only desirable one. "There are no alternatives," Trump will be told again and again.
Thus we get a continuation of a failed Afghanistan policy and will soon get a militarily aggressive policy towards Iran.
Other countries noticed how the game has changed. The real decisions are made by the generals, Trump is ignored as a mere figurehead:
Asked whether he was predicting war [with North Korea], [former defence minister of Japan, Satoshi] Morimoto said: "I think Washington has not decided ... The final decision-maker is [US Defence Secretary] Mr Mattis ... Not the president."Climate change, its local catastrophes and the infrastructure problems it creates within the U.S. will further extend the military role in shaping domestic U.S. policy.
Nationalistic indoctrination, already at abnormal heights in the U.S. society, will further increase. Military control will creep into ever extending fields of once staunchly civilian areas of policy. (Witness the increasing militarization of the police.)
It is only way to sustain the empire.
It is doubtful that Trump will be able to resist the policies imposed on him. Any flicker of resistance will be smashed. The outside insurgency which enabled his election is left without a figurehead, It will likely disperse. The system won.
Posted by b on September 18, 2017 at 11:20 AM | Permalink
Stephen | Sep18, 2017 11:32:00 AM | 1
Only good news: The mask has been torn off US elections. They simply don't matter. Waste of time and money. US has become Saddam's Iraq, Sisi's Egypt, Mugabe's Zimbabwe etc....expect to see Trump win 90% of vote in 2020....hahaha...Hogwash | Sep18, 2017 11:32:04 AM | 2Hogwash - The SAA just crossed the Euphrates. If the neocons were really in control, WW3 would start before dawn tomorrow. Otherwise, Assad will get his biggest oil field back from ISIS.Ken Nari | Sep18, 2017 11:46:59 AM | 3The Russians are hinting that the SDF isn't really fighting ISIS but just pretending to while ISIS soldiers switch uniforms. If that's true, it means the neocons may still be in charge, but what are they going to do about the Syrian Army blocking them now?
Interesting, and certainly a possible explanation of what's going on. Still, if the military is running the show, why the growth of private mercenary businesses? (A new meaning for "corporate warriors."). My own feeling, based on nothing except decades of experience working with the military, is that the generals don't mind a few little wars, but they well know the risks of a big one.financial matters | Sep18, 2017 11:47:33 AM | 4For that reason, the military leadership seems to be trying to cool things down -- that the U.S. didn't go to war with Iran, Russia, China or North Korea (yet) may be due to the influence of the top brass.
b: It is doubtful that Trump will be able to resist the policies imposed on him.
hmmm...I'm not sure there's any pressure at all on Trump. Since Kennedy was removed the president has little real power and is mostly to provide the trappings of democracy and keep the proles entertained. Over 100 years ago T. Roosevelt noticed the lack of presidential freedom to act -- the bully pulpit and all that.
One of the main reasons I was pleased to see Trump get elected was that he wanted to get us out of Syria. Somewhat amazingly I'd say, that has pretty much happened.Don Bacon | Sep18, 2017 12:06:26 PM | 5Russia, Iran and China have shown themselves to be responsible players and have the strength to back that up.
So, I think in reality the US military will be forced by facts on the ground, as well as a weakening of their propaganda, to go along with Trump's original more accommodating posture.
It's probably inevitable that the military would rule in the twilight of US world dominance.Lemur | Sep18, 2017 12:19:50 PM | 6Back in the true USA#1 days it was different. A couple of President Truman quotes: "It's the fellows who go to West Point and are trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart". . ."I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
The main problem with generals is that most (not all) of them got to where they are by sucking up to higher authority, or "go along to get along." Then couple that with all the perks they get including fine housing, enlisted servants and a fat $250K pension for full generals, and they look at themselves in the mirror with all their fancy ribbons and medals and naturally adopt Harry Truman's "gods in uniform" opinion of themselves, forgetting that they have become successful in an isolated military milieu that favors appearance and disregards lack of accomplishment. And the current crop of generals certainly lacks accomplishment.
"Nationalistic indoctrination, already at abnormal heights in the U.S. society, will further increase."ben | Sep18, 2017 12:27:31 PM | 7If that were true, why is the historic American nation being replaced by mystery meats from the global south? The Washington machine certainly produces oodles of propaganda, but it is virulently opposed to ethnocentrism at home and abroad, because that might lead to groups with the solidarity to stand up to a degenerate empire.
The indoctrination taking place here is militaristic globalism. And everyone is invited.
b said:"Trump was seen as a presidential candidate who would possibly move towards a less interventionist foreign policy."The swamp (sewer) in Washington getting muddier each dayOnly by those who don't fully understand the TRUE American system, and those who dream of a system that actually provides " truth, liberty and justice for all".
The better liar won the "election".
Posted by: OJS | Sep18, 2017 12:44:21 PM | 8
The swamp (sewer) in Washington getting muddier each dayben | Sep18, 2017 12:48:52 PM | 9P.S...The U$A corporate empire is driven by, and according to, the dictates of the mega-corporate desires. The Generals dance to their tune.Michael McNulty | Sep18, 2017 12:49:32 PM | 10"It's just business" Trump has NEVER intended to be anything but what the elites wanted him to be....A wealthy puppet..
I think the US is weak militarily for two deep and fundamental reasons, both of which have US politicians to blame.karlof1 | Sep18, 2017 12:50:31 PM | 11First, the US has not had able generals and admirals since WWII because politicians today[especially since 9/11] cannot take criticism. Therefore men like MacArthur and Kimmel, who would tell them a war can't be won like that or this strategy is a bad idea, no longer get the promotions. Yes-men get promoted over more able men.
Second, this promotion of yes-men allows politicians to take over the planning of a war. Whereas MacArthur would have shut the door on the neo-cons and told them he'll let him know when his plan is ready, today politicians use political strategy to try and defeat the war strategy of an opponent. For example, Rumsfeld should have been told that if he wanted to steal Iraq he'd need half a million men - but the generals tried to do the impossible and steal Iraq with a third that number because more was politically sensitive.
If politicians are going to have a war, leave it to able generals to plan it. Or lose.
There's no saving the Unipolar attempt to establish Full Spectrum Dominance -- not even nuclear war -- and I think the generals and their minders actually know this, although they seem to be keeping up appearances. Escobar's latest from last Friday details why this is so, http://www.atimes.com/article/iran-turns-art-deal-upside/likklemore | Sep18, 2017 12:54:41 PM | 12Even the Brazilian regime change project is becoming a loser as the massive corruption scandal is about to devour the neocon favorite Temer, while Lula is rising like the Phoenix. The latest leak scandal over the meeting between Rohrabacher and Kelly regarding Russiagate and the status of Julian Assange reveals more than the leak itself, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47818.htm
And finally, we have another great op/ed by Finian Cunningham who's on a roll of late at the Outlaw US Empire's expense, https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201709161057451619-us-alien-peace/
sleepy | Sep18, 2017 1:35:10 PM | 13Always follow the money. There is only so far a $1 will go. Shrinkflation. The USD, as reserve currency, allowed the US to fund wars, everyday essentials and live high on the hog at the expense of the rest of the world. This exceptional privilege is coming to an end.
When the US declared war; [excluded Iran from use of SWIFT/ the USD] that was the shot heard far and wide. Putin and Xi noted, we could be next and put in place CHIPS.
Lately, Russia and then China has been threatened with sanctions; latest folly of Mnuchin, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. The petro-Yuan Exchange for gold was announced and less than 005% of Americans realize the impact of bypassing the USD.
USA has met its comeuppance. Russia and China need not fire a shot. Prosperity of the exceptional ones is an illusion built on hundreds of trillions of debt. We are kept diverted from de-dollarization by the focus on unschooled Trump. Eight+ months after the selection, it's "Russiagate" – Putin did it; are angels male or female? What happened?
Oilman2 | Sep18, 2017 1:35:11 PM | 14Thus we get a continuation of a failed Afghanistan policy and will soon get a militarily aggressive policy towards Iran.As a candidate way before any junta was installed, Trump always vowed to rip up the Iran nuclear deal. Now why on earth would North Korea trust that any nuclear agreement it made with the US would not similarly be ripped up and shredded a couple years down the road?
If the handling of "local catastrophes" such as Harvey and Irma are any indication of the power of this junta, then I am not very much worried. The FEMA folks, Red Cross and many others showed their ineffectiveness in spades here in Houston. What's even more revealing is just how quickly they dashed out of here to remain in the news when Irma hit Florida.Permafrost | Sep18, 2017 1:36:52 PM | 15I met two ATF guys driving down here after Harvey - and they had no idea why they were coming here. Couldn't articulate a thing to me except to say, repeatedly, "We are ATF and coming to assist." They had ZERO specifics on what they were going to do to help anyone. But they were very much enjoying wearing their ATF t-shirts and sporting their pistols on hip. But it's Texas, and that just made me smile and shake my head. Made me realize that whatever happens here in America, DC and the central government are so incredibly out of touch and living "in the bubble" that they are of very limited use for locals (those outside the East Coast) in any way.
The Feds plan for national, not local catastrophes - and their primary issue is COG, period. They are much more concerned about maintaining government and their own little fiefdoms than in assisting people far away from the DC/NYC corridor.
Further, the math just doesn't work for the junta doing much more than controlling foreign policy (who we next attack) - to try that same thing across America would result in rapid expulsion and failure, as we outnumber them most significantly.
When the pain they cause becomes enough, then things will change. Unfortunately, it seems that change via the national elections has now been abrogated. Something else is likely to ensue, eventually.
NemesisCalling | Sep18, 2017 2:34:52 PM | 16The outside insurgency which enabled his election is left without a figurehead, It will likely disperse. The system won.The problem here ie that the cost for the system to win keeps rising, and the law of diminishing returns remains valid. So for how long? not long.
I just don't understand how people can fall for the line that "nationalism" somehow equates to an undesirable movement akin to the rise of nazism. The media has been blitzing this as of late and rallying cries around the antifa demonstrations have been taking this buzzword and running with it, equating proponents of it to racist KKK members in some silly way or another. Even here, b, you seem to be eating right out of the hands of these pagemasters who dictate what words mean.Kalen | Sep18, 2017 2:49:10 PM | 17I'm sorry, but there is a glaring doublestandard when you praise the policy of say Venezuela which "nationalized" their oil industry and condemn all of us Americans who are begging to disassociate from global mechanisms which are crippling fair-spending of tax dollars here in the state. It is fair to assume that military junta historically use the energy of nationalism's lexicon to promote their agenda, but in this case, as you point out, the junta and the status quo of globalism's iron hand seem to fit together nicely. I read that as nationalism never even taking flight here.
I get your trepidation with this terminology considering the history of your country, but America IS different and we deserve an attempt to put America first...shocking, I know.
B fell pray of partisan propaganda, Trump - the coup d'etat enabler DNC MANTRA.. So please inform me when generals were not in executive charge of the US government. On behave of oligarchic ruling elite ? Where were those civilian rulers during documented 250 conflicts or war US was engaged during 228 years of existencePeter AU 1 | Sep18, 2017 2:49:47 PM | 18The first president was a general and since then US generals executed basic US imperial economic model of aggression and exploitation, military land grab from Indians and Mexicans to suppression of workers strikes by shelling their families at home in US as well in its conquered colonies in CA and Caribbean we have proof thanks to Gen. Butler.
It was a Gen. Eisenhower who warned us the junta refused to disarm after WWII and constitutes coear and present danger to even a facade of republican order.
Anybody who believe that imperial US is run by civilians is SIMPLY gullible since no emporia were ever run by civilians by definition. Roman Empire was run over last 200 year explicitly by generals COMMANDING armies of foreign mercenaries like US today in NATO and ASEAN .
What has changed is that veil of deceit has failed and with Trump those warmongering cockroaches came out of WH woodwork to see a light and tookbopenly control f what they already controlled clandestinely.
16NemesisCalling | Sep18, 2017 3:06:17 PM | 19
If you think US is different to nazi it might be worth reading saker's piece on it. If you think US nationalism is any different to Nazi Germany in aggression then think again. The US population, and much of the so called west, is swamped in propaganda while the US attacks country after country.@18 PeterHoarsewhisperer | Sep18, 2017 3:39:20 PM | 20But once again, many here think that Europe is already one big vassal state of the global/US empire. So if anything, we are all already under the jack boot of empire. To dislodge one piece (US), indeed, the central piece, seems to me that the world would be in recovery mode from "the global reich." Please correct if I'm wrong, but your logic does not compute. Furthermore, I don't think a reeling US economy and population, freshly liberated, is going to be convinced any time soon to wage wars abroad for precious metals and the like. "Helping" the world would probably take a back seat.
...WithAllWindsAhead | Sep18, 2017 3:40:39 PM | 21
"I didn't fire him [General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
...
Posted by: Don Bacon | Sep18, 2017 12:06:26 PM | 5And, despite the fact that Trump rubbed shoulders with dozens of these wannabe Generals at Military Academy, and was exposed to the same claptrap, it seems safe to assume that he realised that a Life spent in the US Military would be pointless, unimaginative and frustrating.
Re. Ben #7:somebody | Sep18, 2017 4:17:08 PM | 24To be fair he did put an end to Timber Sycamore. The deep state wouldn't have pushed so hard on the Russian angle if there weren't a real upheaval. IMO, it went beyond simply covering for the DNC leaks. The whole establishment dog piled the Russian angle. It was for a time the principal means of disrupting Trump's agenda. I think Trump's token strike on the Syrian airbase is evidence of all of this. It was the absolute minimum he could have done in the face of a tidal wave of internal war pressures. And, they certainly could have gotten away with way more of the "trump is a Nazi angle," but they appear to have stopped after they got Bannon out.
Prescribing Trump, a monster though he is, as being at least the lesser war candidate holds IMO. What his presidency has illuminated above all else is the wild degree to which US is first and foremost of war. It is perhaps the most ubiquitous force that charges the US system.
That all said, we are going to find out real soon what the military is after. The SDF and SAA meeting in Deir Ezor is going to tell us a lot. This is perhaps their last chance at balkanization of Syria. A glimmer of hope still resides however in the supposed Pentagon revolt that took place over Obama's red line in the sand, as reported by Sy Hersh and others. As evil as the US military is, they dont seem to actually want war with Russia, unlike the intelligence complex. I, personally, am still hopeful at least about Syria.
16 - let Putin explain it to yousomebody | Sep18, 2017 4:38:26 PM | 25The Russian leader expressed confidence that "one of the key components of our self-consciousness, one of the values and ideas is patriotism." Putin recalled the words of outstanding Soviet Russian scholar Dmitry Likhachev that patriotism drastically differs from nationalism. "Nationalism is hatred of other peoples, while patriotism is love for your motherland," Putin cited his words.add to 24Jackrabbit | Sep18, 2017 4:42:09 PM | 26Or more historical: "Patriotism" was coined in Europe by the French revolution, forming a common state of citizens open to all who can identify with common values and culture. But American Patriots came before that and that is probably where the French got the word.
As a group, Patriots represented a wide array of social, economic and ethnic backgrounds."Nationalism" was a 19th century reaction to the export of the French revolution when European kingdoms tried a legitimization of borders based on language and genetics. It was all war from there to the Second World War and Auschwitz. If you want to sink the US in an internal Civil War try nationalism.
I think there is some hyperventilating here. Was Trump 'turned'? Was his administration 'taken over' or was he always a figurehead? I decided several months ago that it was the latter:broders | Sep18, 2017 5:09:57 PM | 27> How Things Work: Betrayal by Faux Populist LeadersDuring his campaign Trump was vocally pro-military.
PS Hillary has always been pro-military also.
well, the system cannot "win"... dialectics... every steps it takes to control and secure "things", brings it closer to its end, and this, inevitably. no one wins, ever. no one looses even. the only way to fight and defeat evil is a decisive progress in goodness, to ignore it... the reality on the ground allows us to think that way, to set up concerts in the ruins, for good. thank you russia (as for the us military, they need 5 or 6 years to just cath up with last year's stand... but they still can agitate their little arms, so they do).Christian Chuba | Sep18, 2017 5:40:56 PM | 28Location, location, locationI don't want to think of one | Sep18, 2017 5:41:53 PM | 29
I am in shock and awe of our Pentagon (and CIA)'s ability to market themselves. I am convinced that this is their core area of competency as I read the slick consultant generated talking points on how $600B equals a dilapidated military instead of one that needs a purge. If we really have a readiness problem, heads should roll before they get more money but instead we cry for the incompetents.The vaunted sea lanes and free trade
I used for fall for this nonsensical argument, that we needed 20 carrier groups to patrol the oceans to ensure free trade. Really? All we need is an international system of Coast Guards augmented by a few missile boats if there are some countries that don't have the budget for a coast guard to prevent piracy. We don't need aircraft carriers for that. Why do we assume that we need 24x7 aircraft coverage in the Pacific, Persian Gulf and Mediterranean? I have a vague memory of the 80's where it was a big deal that we 'sent our fleet' to the Mediterranean for some occasions. It wasn't assumed that we had a task force parked there 100% of the time.
I don't see why we can't get by with 6 or at most 8 carrier groups with the understanding that we would never deploy more than 2 for special occasions so that they can rotate assignments.
Disappointed in your post, b. Expected better.NemesisCalling | Sep18, 2017 5:58:47 PM | 30"The insurgency that brought Trump to the top was defeated by a counter-insurgency campaign waged by the U.S. military. (Historically its first successful one)"
The USA was on the winning side for the Boxer Rebellion, the 1899-1902 Philippine Insurrection, and a lot of other counter-insurgency operations. Basic military history. Just wanted to mention that to set the correct tone, because your blog post started out factually incorrect and carried on that way until the end.
Basic reasoning test, b:
i) Do you think Trump has been defeated by 'the US military', or ii) do you think a small number of senior military men have thwarted Trump? Because the two are very different things.
I would argue that Mattis, McMaster, Kelly, and their line reports don't represent "the US military", or even its generals per se. They represent themselves as people financially beholden to major investment banks for their retirement funds; people fearful of being blackmailed and destroyed by the NSA and CIA and Mossad; people who rose to senior posts during prior administrations because they were flunkies to the establishment .
Do you think Trump is a weak-minded cretin? Because that's what your theory requires. That the guy can't remember his oft-repeated positions and statements after some briefings and a few months. I say that nobody loses their wits that fast, and nobody does a 180 on so many core policies without knowing that they're doing it.
Trump's wealth (at least in the high hundreds of millions $) and his election victory say he's no moron. He probably knows what he is doing. He's either a guy who gave up the struggle after getting the proverbial political hell beaten out of him in the first months of his administration, or he willingly misled his electoral base when campaigning. Perhaps a little of both. He's known for being a BS merchant. Myself, I think he lied outright to the voters during his run for president. It's not a wild idea: so did Obama, Bush, and Clinton. Bigly.
Trump made the decisions that we criticse so much. Trump decided to let the Obama holdovers stay in the administration. He decided to hire Goldman Sachs flunkies. He decided to send cruise missiles to strike Shayrat. He decided to approve US assistance to Saudi Arabia in Yemen. H decided to let his zionist son-in-law, who is indebted to George Soros, into the White House. He decided to fire Bannon almost as soon as Bannon came out publicly against war with North Korea. (Possibly a deliberate, desperate attempt at a 'spoiler' tactic on Bannon's part, to prevent conflict.) Trump decided to renege on his promises to the electorate about immigration. He decided to sign an unprecedented, unconstitutional law that bound his hands and imposed sanctions on Russia. He decided to go along with the Russian hacking lie by saying that Russia could, maybe, have hacked the DNC and HRC and whoever else (probably including Disney, the Shriners, and my mother). He decided to employ Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus, Scaramucchi and everyone else. He approved all of those things.
"It is indisputable that the generals are now ruling in Washington DC."
Yeah, nah. Pretty sure that's still the Wall St lobby, the Israel lobby, the CFR and the usual mob. Generals are just hired thugs, as Smedley Butler put it. Or as Kissinger put it, the US military is made up of "Military men" who "are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns."What you've done, b, is to pull together some half-formed thoughts and mashed them all together. It sounds badass as a righteously indignant blog post, and I bet the Huffpost crowd would love it – but it fails as logic.
@25 somebodyDon Bacon | Sep18, 2017 6:09:44 PM | 31Nice play of semantics. But it still sounds like "patriotism" is a nice euphemism for nationalism. Why else would Putin be the scourge of the west? Reminds me too of how Putin played nice all through the Syrian War calling the US their "partner." Another euphemism. Seems like Putin likes to sound like the better man (and he is) but part of his strategy has always been to underplay his hand in the mix.
@CC #28les7 | Sep18, 2017 6:22:59 PM | 32
re: aircraft carriersNew carriers cost about $12B each, plus the cost of the 5,000 crew-members and aircraft, plus the cost of the accompanying fleet that goes with every carrier. Carriers have been mainly used in the last decade in the Gulf area to launch aircraft to bomb third world countries. Most carriers are in port most of the time because they require a lot of maintenance, which adds a lot more to expense. They are also used to sail near enemy countries, Washington believing that they are useful to scare third world countries into thinking that they may be bombed, which might make some sense except the results are questionable. As you indicate, the main threat to world shipping is piracy for which carrier fleets are useless. The good thing about having a carrier in the Persian Gulf much of the time is that it ensures that Iran would not be attacked; it would be a sitting duck.
The current location of the eleven US carriers is below taken from here . There is a new addition to the fleet, CVN-78 Gerald R. Ford.
1 - Persian Gulf
1 - hurricane duty
1 - off Carolina coast
1- off Japan coast
7 - portThere are generals and then there are generals... Just which ones are taking over? The Neo-con backed guys? The Pro-pentagon guys? The CIA/JSOC guys? The Black Ops Guys? or the Black on Black Ops guys? The reason I ask is that at one time they were all fighting each other in N.Syria.Don Bacon | Sep18, 2017 6:24:14 PM | 33It is not especially clear to me (being an outsider to US politics) which of the groups (or combination of groups) seems to have come out on top and have their guys as the gate-keeping, information-vetting guys doing the briefing of Trump. My feel of it is that the Pentagon has gained while JSOC, the black ops contractors, and black-on-black ops contractors have lost. The CIA seems to have broken even. Is this a fair read?
If so... I think it is overall a good thing (the beso of an bunch of bad) because the Pentagon have shown themselves to be a lot more sane when it comes to creating conflict zones. They tend to be less covert, a lot more overt and a lot less likely to forment war for the sake of some corporation or political subset of the ruling elite.
thoughts anyone?
#29Palloy | Sep18, 2017 6:45:10 PM | 34
You're wrong. It's obvious who's in charge in Washington currently. There is no doubt that, politically speaking, the insurgency that brought Trump to the top was defeated by a counter-insurgency campaign waged by the U.S. military. Generals Mattis, McMaster and Kelly are paramount in the new administration. Mattis has been given decision power on war, which Trump had promised to curtail.McMaster, with no diplomatic experience, is national security and Kelly manages Trump's office.
The whole administration has taken a new tack with these generals and their military cohorts -- they do no stand alone, they are part of an institution -- managing US foreign policy. Concomitant to this are other factors including the cut in the State Department budget, the appointment of neophyte and hawkish Haley at the UN and Trump's romance with Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Politics is always complex and messy and no one ever "rules" in the way being assumed. The military have always had a big say - how else did they get such a huge budget for years on end? CIA have always played a big part, likewise FBI, NSA, Wall St., CFR, Fed, IMF and so on. Three, maybe six , Generals now have a bigger influence. Bannon has gone, so less influence for the deplorables. That is only a subtle change in the big scheme of things.Linda O | Sep18, 2017 7:22:25 PM | 35And now we are going to have a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue on 4th of July, http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-18/day-fire-and-fury-trump-considers-military-parade-down-pennsylvania-avenue (sorry -don't know what you want for links), just like that other fat person with a funny hair-cut, inexperienced, erratic and unpredictable, nuclear-armed and dangerous.
This is the just the death throes of an empire that is meeting the Limits to Growth. Expect MUCH MUCH worse to come. I think it will be SO horrible, many people will take the suicide option.
Obviously any 1000 or so word article is going to woefully simplified compared to the decades of historical and political research that will dissect the Trump presidency in the finest detail, I will say that this article has one glaring flaw that significantly lessens its value. Trump has rolled over for EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in Washington. There really is nothing special about the military's ease with which they captured and neutered Trump.VietnamVet | Sep18, 2017 7:30:08 PM | 36I don't think there is a single area of his campaign platform that he has given up on or flip-flopped on. I don't think there is any other president who has been a comparable ACROSS THE BOARD FAILURE like Trump.
No one has ever been surprised that the wacky, inane, or divorced from reality promises presidents made to get themselves elected never were followed through on. But every single president before Trump at the very least had a core set of priorities they immediately set in motion.
The failure of the Trump presidency should for once and for all put to rest the silly and juvinille dream of the lone super man heading off to Washington to FINALLY TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS and show those sleazy career politicians who things are done in the real world.
Trump walked into the White House with absolutely no governing apparatus ready to go on day one like every other presidential candidate has in the past.
Presidential candidates spend decades building up a vast network of people ready to hit the ground running and know how Washington works from the moment the election is over.
One has to wonder if Trump really ever expected to win. Or just has a complete lack of interest in the massive network o loyal and knowledgeable people needed to setup a brand new presidential administration.
And there is no check on how badly the Trump administration can fail. His base appears to be currled up in fetal position on Breitbart collectively chanting 'this is not happening, this is not happening.'
I don't think I've ever felt more joy than seeing that ABSOLUTE FILTH Hillary Clinton get here murderous and vile ass get handed to her by a TV personality.
Never in my dreams did I think Trump wouldn't accomplish ANYTHING.
So Trump fans, keep posting those MEMES and WINNING --
b's analysis rings true. The establishment has reined in Donald Trump. On their return from Florida, it appeared that Melania Trump is well aware of the history of the House of Bourbon. One does not become a Four-star General in the establishment today without an instinctive understanding of the needs of the organ grinder. The end stage of an Empire is everybody for themselves. The open source insurrection is over until it isn't anymore. Periodic combat takeoffs from Joint Base Andrews are not reassuring. The desire to stay alive is the only brake on the rush to a nuclear war with North Korea or the heating up of the Cold War with Russia.Madmen | Sep18, 2017 7:58:27 PM | 38A great follow-up article to an UNZ article early this year which stated:PavewayIV | Sep18, 2017 8:15:14 PM | 39During the election campaign the power elite's military faction under Trump confounded all political pundits by outflanking and decisively defeating the power elite's political faction. In fact by capturing the Republican nomination and overwhelmingly defeating the Democratic establishment, Trump and the military faction not just shattered the power elites' political faction, within both the Democratic and Republican parties, but simultaneously ended both the Clinton and Bush dynasties.
During the election campaign the power elite's corporate faction realised, far too late, that Trump was a direct threat to their power base, and turned the full force of their corporate media against Trump's military faction, while Trump using social media bypassed and eviscerated the corporate media causing them to lose all remaining credibility.
http://www.unz.com/article/political-sciences-theory-of-everything-on-the-2016-us-election/
I respectfully disagree with everyone. There is nobody in charge in Washington DC and hasn't been for a long time.MadMax2 | Sep18, 2017 8:23:13 PM | 40There are psychopathic oligarchs, warlords, fiefdoms and secret cabals milking their power and authority for a variety of self-serving interests with varying degrees of success and failure. The entire government has mutated to an arena where the above powers spar for more control and more money day after day. There is no real oversight. It's too complex and secretive for any one person or group to be 'in charge'.
The announcer is not 'in charge'. He's just the announcer, nothing more. And the little people are just spectators, nothing more.
@34 PalloyDon Bacon | Sep18, 2017 8:27:27 PM | 41Couldn't agree more re: Limits to Growth. And no prizes for guessing which major economies have gone about insulating themselves against the pitfalls of cowboy economics... nothing was fixed, repaired, refitted or replaced after 2008...crazy that any chance of sensible, sustainable capitalism in the west might be lost to the cannibals need of rampant consumerism. I'll side with the nations that keep an interest in public banking systems rather than the one's that encourage it citizens ro eat the face off one another.
It's not all dark though, The Tale of The Don is really a romantic one... Of the wild west never ending... Of the railroad tycoons that never really died.
Jackrabbit gets more right with every passing day... there is no such thing as an outsider the moment you win.
@ 38Don Bacon | Sep18, 2017 8:31:06 PM | 42
Yes, the power elite's military faction. Not: "I would argue that Mattis, McMaster, Kelly, and their line reports don't represent "the US military", or even its generals per se. They represent themselves as people financially beholden to major investment banks. . ."Outsiders don't appreciate the power of the strengthening military-industrial complex that Eisenhower cautioned about in his farewell address.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
from "The Hill": Overnight Defense: Senate passes $700B defense bill | 3,000 US troops heading to Afghanistan | Two more Navy officials fired over ship collisionsV. Arnold | Sep18, 2017 8:34:04 PM | 43A Chinese fire drill best describes what passes for the U.S.'s present level of policy. Most of the world watches; aghast at the spectacle, while cowering with fear at the hubris...Jackrabbit | Sep18, 2017 8:38:28 PM | 44@spudskiV. Arnold | Sep18, 2017 9:00:19 PM | 45But other commenters have also been critical, though less colorful.
@Madmen
Is the possibility of Trump as controlled opposition so far-fetched? Do you think the "power elite's political wing" only runs one candidate? Have you heard of "illusion of choice"? Do you think sheepdog Bernie was a real candidate?
Obama and Trump both gained greater apparent legitimacy by: 1) beating the establishment candidate; and 2) being besieged by bat-shit crazy critics (birthers; anti-Russians & antifa).
As soon as you choose a side, you are trapped. Two sides of the same coin. Minted in hell.
Jackrabbit @ Sep18, 2017 8:38:28 PM | 44spudski | Sep18, 2017 9:01:53 PM | 46As soon as you choose a side, you are trapped. Two sides of the same coin. Minted in hell.
Nice, I like it...
@JackrabbitAgreed. I had no problem with the substance, in fact I like the fact that there are diverse opinions here and I learn a lot from the discussions. I just didn't need the gratuitous insults to b given how much effort he puts in here.
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Jun 02, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
It looks like Trump initially has a four point platform that was anti-neoliberal in its essence:
- Non-interventionism. End the wars for the expansion of American neoliberal empire. Détente was Russia. Abolishing NATO and saving money on this. Let European defend themselves. Etc.
- No to neoliberal globalization. Abolishing of transnational treaties that favor large multinationals such as TPP, NAFTA, etc. Tariffs and other means of punishing corporations who move production overseas. Repatriation of foreign profits to the USA and closing of tax holes which allow to keep profits in tax heavens without paying a dime to the US government.
- No to neoliberal "transnational job market" -- free movement of labor. Criminal prosecution and deportation of illegal immigrants. Cutting intake of refugees. Curtailing legal immigration, especially fake and abused programs like H1B. Making it more difficult for people from countries with substantial terrorist risk to enter the USA including temporary prohibition of issuing visas from certain (pretty populous) Muslim countries.
- No to the multiculturalism. Stress on "Christian past" and "white heritage" of American society and the role of whites in building the country. Rejection of advertising "special rights" of minorities such as black population, LGBT, etc. Promotion them as "identity wedges" in elections was the trick so dear to DemoRats and, especially Hillary and Obama.
That means that Trump election platform on an intuitive level has caught several important problem that were created in the US society by dismantling of the "New Deal" and rampant neoliberalism practiced since Reagan ("Greed is good" mantra).
Of cause, after election he decided to practice the same "bait and switch" maneuver as Obama. Generally he folded in less then 100 days. Not without help from DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats) which created a witch hunt over "Russian ties" with their dreams of the second Watergate.
But in any case, this platform still provides a path to election victory in any forthcoming election, as problems listed are real , are not solved, and are extremely important for lower 90% of Americans. Tulsi Gabbard so far is that only democratic politician that IMHO qualifies. Sanders is way too old and somewhat inconsistent on No.1.
Frank was the first to note this "revolutionary" part of Tramp platform:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support
Last week, I decided to watch several hours of Trump speeches for myself. I saw the man ramble and boast and threaten and even seem to gloat when protesters were ejected from the arenas in which he spoke. I was disgusted by these things, as I have been disgusted by Trump for 20 years. But I also noticed something surprising. In each of the speeches I watched, Trump spent a good part of his time talking about an entirely legitimate issue, one that could even be called left-wing.
Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame.
He did it again during the debate on 3 March: asked about his political excommunication by Mitt Romney, he chose to pivot and talk about trade.
It seems to obsess him: the destructive free-trade deals our leaders have made, the many companies that have moved their production facilities to other lands, the phone calls he will make to those companies' CEOs in order to threaten them with steep tariffs unless they move back to the US.
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Sep 13, 2017 | www.theguardian.com
George Monbiot's the missing chapter: a key to understanding the politics of the past half century. To read Nancy MacLean's new book, Democracy in Chains : The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America, is to see what was previously invisible.The history professor's work on the subject began by accident. In 2013 she stumbled across a deserted clapboard house on the campus of George Mason University in Virginia. It was stuffed with the unsorted archives of a man who had died that year whose name is probably unfamiliar to you: James McGill Buchanan. She says the first thing she picked up was a stack of confidential letters concerning millions of dollars transferred to the university by the billionaire Charles Koch .
Her discoveries in that house of horrors reveal how Buchanan, in collaboration with business tycoons and the institutes they founded, developed a hidden programme for suppressing democracy on behalf of the very rich. The programme is now reshaping politics, and not just in the US.
Buchanan was strongly influenced by both the neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises , and the property supremacism of John C Calhoun, who argued in the first half of the 19th century that freedom consists of the absolute right to use your property (including your slaves) however you may wish; any institution that impinges on this right is an agent of oppression, exploiting men of property on behalf of the undeserving masses.
James Buchanan brought these influences together to create what he called public choice theory . He argued that a society could not be considered free unless every citizen has the right to veto its decisions. What he meant by this was that no one should be taxed against their will. But the rich were being exploited by people who use their votes to demand money that others have earned, through involuntary taxes to support public spending and welfare. Allowing workers to form trade unions and imposing graduated income taxes were forms of "differential or discriminatory legislation" against the owners of capital.
Any clash between "freedom" (allowing the rich to do as they wish) and democracy should be resolved in favour of freedom. In his book The Limits of Liberty , he noted that "despotism may be the only organisational alternative to the political structure that we observe." Despotism in defence of freedom.
His prescription was a "constitutional revolution": creating irrevocable restraints to limit democratic choice. Sponsored throughout his working life by wealthy foundations, billionaires and corporations, he developed a theoretical account of what this constitutional revolution would look like, and a strategy for implementing it.
He explained how attempts to desegregate schooling in the American south could be frustrated by setting up a network of state-sponsored private schools. It was he who first proposed privatizing universities, and imposing full tuition fees on students: his original purpose was to crush student activism. He urged privatization of social security and many other functions of the state. He sought to break the links between people and government, and demolish trust in public institutions. He aimed, in short, to save capitalism from democracy.
In 1980, he was able to put the programme into action. He was invited to Chile , where he helped the Pinochet dictatorship write a new constitution, which, partly through the clever devices Buchanan proposed, has proved impossible to reverse entirely. Amid the torture and killings, he advised the government to extend programmes of privatisation, austerity, monetary restraint, deregulation and the destruction of trade unions: a package that helped trigger economic collapse in 1982.
None of this troubled the Swedish Academy, which through his devotee at Stockholm University Assar Lindbeck in 1986 awarded James Buchanan the Nobel memorial prize for economics . It is one of several decisions that have turned this prize toxic.
Koch officials said that the network's midterm budget for policy and politics is between $300m and $400m, but donors are demanding legislative progress
But his power really began to be felt when Koch, currently the seventh richest man in the US, decided that Buchanan held the key to the transformation he sought. Koch saw even such ideologues as Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan as "sellouts", as they sought to improve the efficiency of government rather than destroy it altogether . But Buchanan took it all the way.
MacLean says that Charles Koch poured millions into Buchanan's work at George Mason University, whose law and economics departments look as much like corporate-funded thinktanks as they do academic faculties. He employed the economist to select the revolutionary "cadre" that would implement his programme (Murray Rothbard, at the Cato Institute that Koch founded, had urged the billionaire to study Lenin's techniques and apply them to the libertarian cause). Between them, they began to develop a programme for changing the rules.
The papers Nancy MacLean discovered show that Buchanan saw stealth as crucial. He told his collaborators that "conspiratorial secrecy is at all times essential". Instead of revealing their ultimate destination, they would proceed by incremental steps. For example, in seeking to destroy the social security system, they would claim to be saving it, arguing that it would fail without a series of radical "reforms". (The same argument is used by those attacking the NHS). Gradually they would build a "counter-intelligentsia", allied to a "vast network of political power" that would become the new establishment.
Through the network of thinktanks that Koch and other billionaires have sponsored, through their transformation of the Republican party, and the hundreds of millions they have poured into state congressional and judicial races, through the mass colonisation of Trump's administration by members of this network and lethally effective campaigns against everything from public health to action on climate change, it would be fair to say that Buchanan's vision is maturing in the US.
But not just there. Reading this book felt like a demisting of the window through which I see British politics. The bonfire of regulations highlighted by the Grenfell Tower disaster, the destruction of state architecture through austerity, the budgeting rules, the dismantling of public services, tuition fees and the control of schools: all these measures follow Buchanan's programme to the letter. I wonder how many people are aware that David Cameron's free schools project stands in a tradition designed to hamper racial desegregation in the American south.
In one respect, Buchanan was right: there is an inherent conflict between what he called "economic freedom" and political liberty. Complete freedom for billionaires means poverty, insecurity, pollution and collapsing public services for everyone else. Because we will not vote for this, it can be delivered only through deception and authoritarian control. The choice we face is between unfettered capitalism and democracy. You cannot have both.
Buchanan's programme is a prescription for totalitarian capitalism. And his disciples have only begun to implement it. But at least, thanks to MacLean's discoveries, we can now apprehend the agenda. One of the first rules of politics is, know your enemy. We're getting there.
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Nov 08, 2015 | zeroanthropology.net
If the present provides a hint of what it is to come, the nastiest, ugliest, and bloodiest wars to be fought this century will be between states opposed to continued US dominance, and the force multipliers of US dominance. We see the outline of sovereign self-defense programs that take diverse forms, from the banning of foreign funding for NGOs operating in a state's territory, controlling the mass media, arresting protesters, shutting down CIA-funded political parties, curtailing foreign student exchanges, denying visas to foreign academic researchers, terminating USAID operations, to expelling US ambassadors, and so forth. In extreme cases, this includes open warfare between governments and armed rebels backed by the US, or more indirectly (as the force multiplier principle mandates) backed by US allies. US intervention will provoke and heighten paranoia, stoking repression, and create the illusion of a self-fulfilling prophecy that US interventionists can further manipulate, using logic of this kind: they are serial human rights abusers; we therefore need to intervene in the name of humanity. There will be no discussion, let alone admission, that US covert intervention helped to provoke repression, and that the US knowingly placed its "force multipliers" on the front line. "Force multipliers" also requires us to understand the full depth and scope of US imperialism comprising, among other things: entertainment, food, drink, software, agriculture, arms sales, media, and so on.
Yet, in the end, we are still left with a basic question: What is a force multiplier? There are even more answers to this question than there are persons answering it. Beyond the most basic definition in physics, we see a proliferation of examples of force multipliers, reflecting a weak pseudo-science that reifies actual policies, offering mixed results in practice. Given the scientistic and positivist approach that achieved hegemony during the Cold War in US universities and the military, the conceptualization of force multipliers reveals familiar problems arising from the naturalization of social phenomena, of "man" as "molecule" of society. As an impoverished form of political science, one that is formulaic, mechanical, utilitarian, and ideologically-driven, the force multiplier idea nonetheless poses difficult anthropological questions about the agency of others.
My hope was that military writers did not choose to write "force multipliers" because candidly calling them "quislings," "shills," "dupes," "pawns" or "suckers" would have been too "politically incorrect," or would have validated older, Cold War-era accusations of the US supporting "stooges," "lackeys," "cronies," "henchmen," "running dogs," or "lap dogs". In other words, my hope was that this was not yet another imperial euphemism. Regardless of the intentions behind the terminology, whether conscious or not, the basic idea of using humans as a form of drone , one that is less expensive yet more precise and in less need of constant guidance, seems to be the persisting feature of the force multiplier concept.
If the concept is not a mere euphemism, then there is still an absence of sound theorization of force multipliers on the part of the Pentagon, and by that I mean that while an inchoate lexical infrastructure exists consisting of nested synonyms derived from the natural sciences, there is little more than crude utilitarianism and functionalism to hold the terms together. Some may wish to retort, "then that is the theory" by noting the presence of functionalist assumptions and premises derived from rational-choice theories. However, the presence of theory should also involve the process of theorization, which entails questioning, revising, and exposing one's assumptions to a dialogue with other theories and with facts that appear to challenge the validity of the theory.
There may be a lot of real-world destruction by the US military and intelligence apparatus, but there is no winning as such!the absence of theorization is killing the imperial political and security structures, but their exposure to critical theories will only hasten their defeat. No wonder then that so many right-wing "pro-military" columnists in the US routinely scoff at and dismiss "post-colonialism"!theirs is a hegemony in trouble, turned narcissistic: unable to find their mirror image in many sectors of the social sciences and humanities, they resort to angry triumphalism and cyclical repetition of the same failed "solutions," repeated over and over again. On the other hand, they can find their mirror-image in academia, and particularly anthropology, in other ways: many US anthropologists' convoluted (meta)theoretical fumblings, obfuscated by pretentious language whose deliberate lack of clarity masks deep confusion and bewilderment, stands out particularly in the cases of topics which are "new," such as democracy or globalization. In this sense, both the US military and US anthropology in some quarters share in common a proliferation of theoretical-sounding rhetoric and a lack of scientific theory. Not coincidentally, both also share an apparent aversion to even saying the word "imperialism". One might detect a certain decadence in imperial intellectual life, of which the force multiplier theoretical pretense is but one small example.
Clearly there are numerous examples of agents serving as "force multipliers," and almost as clear is the absence of theorization, let alone reason for imperial elites to feel confident about success when the political, economic, and cultural projects they represent are domestically bankrupt and alienating. Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq, and "winning hearts and minds," certainly did happen in some places and to some extent, which gives partial weight to the "force multiplier" idea at the core of these processes. However, on the whole, counterinsurgency programs have been defeated in Afghanistan just as in Vietnam before.
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Jun 22, 2017 | www.informationclearinghouse.info
This article was first published by Contra Corner
Bull's eye!
"They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history – led by some very bad and conflicted people!"
The Donald has never spoken truer words but also has never sunken lower into abject victimhood. Indeed, what is he waiting for -- handcuffs and a perp walk?
Just to be clear, "he" doesn't need to be the passive object of a "WITCH HUNT" by "they".
If Donald Trump had any kind of presidential strategy and propensity to take command, he would have had all the intercepts of Russian chatter gathered up weeks ago. He would then have had them declassified and made public, even as he launched a criminal prosecution against Obama's hit squad-John Brennan, Susan Rice and Valerie Jarrett for illegally unmasking and leaking classified information.
Such a course of action would have crushed the Russian interference hysteria in the bud. At bottom, the latter was a rearguard invention of the Deep State and Democratic partisans. They became literally shocked and desperate for a scapegoat early last fall by the prospect that the unthinkable was happening.
Namely, the election by the unwashed masses of an outsider and insurrectionist who could not be counted upon to serve as a "trusty" for the status quo; and whose naïve but correct instinct to seek a rapprochement with Russia was a mortal threat to the very modus operandi of the Imperial City.
Moreover, from the very beginning, the Russian interference narrative was rooted in nothing more than standard cyber noise from Moscow that pales compared to what comes out of Langley (CIA) and Ft. Meade (NSA). And we do mean irrelevant noise.
After all, it didn't take a Kremlinologist from the old Soviet days to figure out that Putin did not favor Clinton, who had likened him to Hitler. And that he welcomed Trump, who had correctly said NATO was obsolete, that he didn't want to give lethal aid to the Ukrainians, and had expressed a desire to make a deal with Putin on Syria and numerous other areas of unnecessary confrontation.
So let's start with two obvious points. Namely, that there is no "there, there" and that the president not only has the power to declassify secret documents at will but in this instance could do so without compromising intelligence community (IC) "sources and methods" in the slightest.
The latter is the case because after Snowden's revelations in June 2013, the whole world was put on notice and most especially Washington's adversaries–that it collects in raw form every single electronic digit that passes through the worldwide web and related communications grids. It boils down to universal and omniscient SIGINT (signals intelligence), and acknowledgment of that fact by publishing the Russia-Trump intercepts would provide new knowledge to exactly no one.
Nor would it jeopardize the lives of any American spy or agent (HUMINT); it would just document the unconstitutional interference in the election process that had been committed by the US intelligence agencies and political operatives in the Obama White House.
Yes, we can hear the boxes on the CNN screen harrumphing and spinning noisily that declassifying the "evidence" would amount to obstruction of justice! That is to say, since Trump's "crime" is axiomatic (i.e. his occupancy of the Oval Office), anything that gets in the way of his conviction and removal therefrom amounts to "obstruction".
Given that he is up against a Deep State/Dem/Neocon/ mainstream media prosecution, the Donald has no chance of survival short of an aggressive offensive of the type described above.
But that's not happening because the man is clueless about what he is doing in the White House and is being advised by a cacophonous coterie of amateurs and nincompoops. So he has no action plan except to impulsively reach for his Twitter account.
That became more than evident-and more than pathetic, too-when earlier this morning he tweeted out an attack on his own Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein. At least Nixon fired Elliot Richardson (his Attorney General) and Bill Ruckelshaus (Deputy AG):
"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt"
So alone with his Twitter account, clueless advisors and pulsating rage, the Donald is instead laying the groundwork for his own demise. Were this not the White House, it would normally be the point at which they send in the men in white coats with a straight jacket.
Indeed, that's essentially what Donald's ostensible GOP allies on the Hill are actually doing. RussiaGate is self-evidently a witch-hunt like few others in American political history. Yet as the mainstream cameras and microphones were thrust at one Congressional Republican after another yesterday afternoon following Donald's outburst quoted above, there was nary an echo of the agreement.
Even Senator John Thune, an ostensible Swamp-hating conservative, had nothing but praise for Special Counsel Robert Mueller while affecting an earnest confidence that he would fairly and thoroughly get to the bottom of the matter.
No he won't!
Mueller is a card-carrying apparatchik of the Deep State, who was there at the founding of today's surveillance monster as Director of the FBI in the aftermath of 9/11. Since the whole $75 billion apparatus that eventually emerged was based on a vastly exaggerated threat of global Islamic terrorism that doesn't exist, Russia had to be demonized into order to keep the game going-a transition that Mueller fully subscribed to.
So he will "find" extensive Russian interference in the 2016 election and bring the hammer down on the Donald for seeking to prevent it from coming to light. The clock is now ticking and his investigatory team is being loaded up with prosecutorial killers who have proven records of thuggery when it comes to finding crimes that make for the fame and fortune of the prosecutors-even if the crime itself never happened.
To wit, Mueller's #1 hire was the despicable Andrew Weissmann. The latter had led the fraud section of the department's Criminal Division, served as general counsel to the F.B.I. when Mueller was its director, and, more importantly, was the driving force behind the Enron task force the most egregious exercise in prosecutorial abuse and thuggery since the Palmer raids of 1919.
Meanwhile, as we said the other day, the GOP elders especially could also not be clearer about what is coming down the pike.
They are not defending Trump with even a modicum of the vigor and resolve that we recall from the early days of Tricky Dick's ordeal, and, of course, he didn't survive anyway. Instead, it's as if Ryan, McConnell, et al. have offered to hold his coat, while the Donald pummels himself with a 140-character Twitter Knife that is visible to the entire world.
So there should be no doubt. A Great Big Coup is on the way. But here's the irony of the matter.
Exactly four years ago in June 2013, no one was seriously demonizing Putin or Russia. In fact, the slicksters of CNN were still snickering about Mitt Romney's silly claim during the 2012 election campaign that Russia was the greatest security threat facing America.
But then came the Syrian jihadist false flag chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus in August 2013 and the US intelligence community's flagrant lie that it had proof the villain was Bashar Assad. To the contrary, it subsequently became evident that the primitive rockets that had carried the deadly sarin gas, which killed upwards of 1500 innocent civilians, could not have been fired from regime-held territory; the rockets examined by UN investigators had a range of only a few kilometers, not the 15-20 kilometers from the nearest Syrian base.
In any event, President Obama choose to ignore his own red line and called off the bombers. That, in turn, paved the way for Vladimir Putin to step into the breach and persuade Assad to give up all of his chemical weapons commitment he fully complied with over the course of the next year.
Needless to say, in the eyes of the neocon War Party, this constructive act of international statesmanship by Putin was the unforgivable sin. It thwarted the next target on their regime change agenda-removal of the Assad government in Syria as a step toward an ultimate attack on its ally, the Shiite regime of Iran.
So it did not take long for the Deep State to retaliate. While Putin was basking in the glory of the 2014 winter Olympics at Sochi, the entire apparatus of Imperial Washington – the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, the State Department and a long string of Washington funded NGOs - was on the ground in Kiev midwifing the putsch that overthrew Ukraine's constitutionally elected President and Russian ally.
From there, the Ukrainian civil war and partition of Crimea inexorably followed, as did the escalating campaign against Russia and its leader.
Indeed, given the Stalin-era animosity between the Russian-speaking Donbas and Crimean regions of the confected state of Ukraine and the virulent anti-Russian populations elsewhere – including descendants of the Nazi collaborators with Hitler during WWII -- there could have been no other outcome. And that was especially the case after Washington designated "Yats", a neo-Nazi sympathizer named Arseniy Yatseniuk, as the guy to takeover the Ukrainian government at the time of the Kiev uprising.
So as it turned out, the War Party could not have planned a more fortuitous outcome -- especially after Russia moved to protect its legitimate interests in its own backyard resulting from the Washington-instigated civil war in Ukraine, including protecting its 200-year old Naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea. The War Party simply characterized these actions falsely as acts of aggression by a potential sacker of the peace and territorial integrity of its European neighbors.
There is nothing like a demonized enemy to keep the $700 billion national security budget flowing and the hideous Warfare State opulence of the Imperial City intact. So why not throw in an allegedly "stolen" US election to garnish the case?
In a word, the Little Putsch in Kiev is now begetting a Great Big Coup in the Imperial City. This is a history-shattering development, but don't tell the boys and girls and robo-machines on Wall Street.
Pathetically, they still think its game on.
David Alan Stockman is an author, former businessman and U.S. politician who served as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan and as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
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Jun 23, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
Pft | Jun 23, 2017 8:43:28 PM | 45William Engdahls views. "In my view this is a deep power struggle between Qatar and Saudi Arabia that has little to do with stated reasons regarding Muslim Brotherhood and Iran. The action to isolate Qatar was clearly instigated during US President Trump's recent visit in Riyadh where he pushed the unfortunate idea of a Saudi-led "Arab NATO" to oppose Iranian influence in the region.lysander | Jun 23, 2017 7:43:17 PM | 42The Saudi move, clearly instigated by Prince Bin Salman, Minister of Defense, was not about going against terrorism. If it were about terrorism, bin Salman would have to arrest himself and most of his Saudi cabinet as one of the largest financiers of terrorism in the world, and shut all Saudi-financed madrasses around the world, from Pakistan to Bosnia-Herzgovina to Kosovo. Another factor according to informed sources in Holland is that Washington wanted to punish Qatar for seeking natural gas sales with China priced not in US dollars but in Renminbi. That apparently alarmed Washington, as Qatar is the world's largest LNG exporter and most to Asia.
Moreover, Qatar was acting increasingly independent of the heavy Wahhabite hand of Saudi Arabia and threatening Saudi domination over the Gulf States. Kuwait, Oman, as well as non-Gulf Turkey were coming closer to Qatar and even Pakistan now may think twice about joining a Saudi-led "Arab NATO". Bin Salman has proven a disaster as a defense strategist, as proven in the Yemen debacle.
As to the future, it appears that Qatar is not about to rollover and surrender in face of Saudi actions. Already Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani is moving to establish closer ties with Iran, with Turkey that might include Turkish military support, and most recently with Russia.
Kuwait and Oman are urgently trying to get Saudi to backdown on this, but that is unlikely as behind Saudi Arabia stands the US and promises of tens of billions of dollars in US arms.
This foolish US move to use their proxy, in this case Riyadh, to discipline those not "behaving" according to Washington wishes, could well be the turning point, the point of collapse of US remaining influence in the entire Middle East in the next several years."
KSA could not have taken this course of action all by itself. Someone somewhere must be egging them on. But who? The US seems to have no interest in a Saudi-Qatari conflict. Israel might, but only if said conflict is resolved in Saudi favor.I am therefore coming to the conclusion that there is no longer clear leadership of US policy and there are different factions within the US government. The white house and CIA are supporting the Saudis while the Pentagon supports Qatar. This is just a hunch, but it seems like it could make sense. Perhaps this is what happens when a government is in a state of decompensation.
R Winner | Jun 23, 2017 1:41:04 PM | 4
It is mind boggling that a fundamental reshaping of the Middle East was most likely put in motion by Trump completely oblivious of what he was doing shooting from the hip on his Saudi trip.Outside of an outright invasion of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, it is hard to see this as a once in a life time geopolitical gift to Russia, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Iran.
Juggs | Jun 23, 2017 2:24:33 PM | 9Now when July 3 comes and goes, Saudi Arabia will look completely impotent in the eyes of the countries in the region.harrylaw | Jun 23, 2017 2:36:39 PM | 10I wonder if there is some sort of interest between Russia, Turkey, Qatar, and Iran on a coup in Saudi Arabia. I can't imagine it would be that difficult. I know it is not Putin's policy to play these types of games like the US Regime, but one has to assume that people are just fucking done with the clowns running Saudi Arabia.
Gaddafi's speech to the Arab League in Syria 2008 was so prescient..okie farmer | Jun 23, 2017 2:37:39 PM | 11"We [the Arabs] are the enemies of one another I'm sad to say, we deceive one another, we gloat at the misfortune of one another, and we conspire against one another, and an Arab's enemy is another Arab's friend.
Along comes a foreign power, occupies an Arab country [Iraq] and hangs its President,and we all sit on the sidelines laughing. Any one of you might be next, yes.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/23/close-al-jazeera-saudi-arabia-issues-qatar-with-13-demands-to-end-blockadeJuggs | Jun 23, 2017 2:41:55 PM | 13
Qatar given 10 days to meet 13 sweeping demands by Saudi Arabia
Gulf dispute deepens as allies issue ultimatum for ending blockade that includes closing al-Jazeera and cutting back ties with IranPeter AU "Is Qatar, like Turkey, already heading for a multi-polar world? For 25 years, the US was the only game in town, but with Russia's move into Syria there are now options."karlof1 | Jun 23, 2017 3:06:36 PM | 16Hard to see the world heading in that direction:
- Russia and China will no longer allow the US Regime to use the same tactics to start wars against Iraq and Libya anymore.
- China is methodically closing off the South China Sea to the US Regime
- The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is starting to increase their shared defense
- Europe is openly talking about creating its own independent defense force
I wonder if Qatar is already in talks with China about joining the Silk Road Initiative now that it is openly moving into the Russia and Iran sphere.
Juggs 13--dh | Jun 23, 2017 3:20:35 PM | 19"I wonder if Qatar is already in talks with China about joining the Silk Road Initiative..."
You'll find the answer's yes as Pepe explains, https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201706161054701807-west-cannot-smell-what-eurasia-cooking/ and http://www.atimes.com/article/blood-tracks-new-silk-roads/
@17 The best is yet to come. There's a chance Netanyahu will fly into Riyadh to tell everybody what to do. I'm sure he wants what's best for the region.L'Akratique | Jun 23, 2017 3:29:54 PM | 20I quite like the WWI parallel. Trump as Kaiser Wilhelm? There certainly are some striking similarities in character.cankles | Jun 23, 2017 4:05:49 PM | 25Quote from Thomas Nipperdey:
"...gifted, with a quick understanding, sometimes brilliant, with a taste for the modern,-technology, industry, science -- but at the same time superficial, hasty, restless, unable to relax, without any deeper level of seriousness, without any desire for hard work or drive to see things through to the end, without any sense of sobriety, for balance and boundaries, or even for reality and real problems, uncontrollable and scarcely capable of learning from experience, desperate for applause and success, -- as Bismarck said early on in his life, he wanted every day to be his birthday-romantic, sentimental and theatrical, unsure and arrogant, with an immeasurably exaggerated self-confidence and desire to show off, a juvenile cadet, who never took the tone of the officers' mess out of his voice, and brashly wanted to play the part of the supreme warlord, full of panicky fear of a monotonous life without any diversions, and yet aimless, pathological in his hatred against his English mother."
@Laguerre #23Laguerre | Jun 23, 2017 4:42:05 PM | 27I have difficulty in seeing a relationship with the Silk Road Initiative, other than that Qatar exports a lot of LNG to China.China Eyes Qatar in its Quest to Build a New Silk Road
Last month at the China-Arab Cooperation Forum in Doha, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi postulated that Qatar should take part in the realization of China's Silk Road Initiatives.@cankles | Jun 23, 2017 4:05:49 PM | 25AtaBrit | Jun 23, 2017 4:51:40 PM | 28Yeah, you're right. I hadn't looked into the question sufficiently. Of course the Chinese are looking for more external finance for the project. They don't want to be the only ones who pay. Fat chance, though. The Qataris have been in austerity since the decline in the oil price. Someone I know who works in the Qatar Museum has seen all her colleagues let go. And now the crisis with Saudi.
The Qataris may even have signed contracts with China. But if you know anything about the Gulf, there's a wide gap between signing a contract, and actually getting paid. It depends upon how the prince concerned feels about the project when the question of payment comes up. A company I worked for in the 80s took two years to get payment, even though they were experts in Gulfi relations.
Great piece.Mina | Jun 23, 2017 5:09:45 PM | 29The issue of the threat regarding the Turkish base didn't surprise me much, though. I think it's clear that if MB is the target, then of course Turkey has to become a target, and Qatar - Turkey ties have to be broken. It stands to reason.
It also stands to reason if you simply consider Saudi's importance regionally: A lot is made of Iran's threat to Saudi influence, but Turkey - thanks in part to considerable investment by Qatar currently while investment from elsewhere has reduced massively -- is also very threatening to Saudi's influence, especially on the religious front.
Iran representing Shia interests in the region and Turkey representing Sunni interests is not a difficult future to imagine. It would of course grate with Saudi Arabia given that it had poured vast amounts of money into the Turkish economy and the diyanet.
On a slightly different note there's a scandal going on in western Turkey, in Duzce, at the moment because the local authority has unveiled a statue of Rabia - the four fingered Muslim Brotherhood salute! :-)
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/271450/World/Region/UN-blames-warring-sides-for-Yemens-cholera-catastr.aspxkarlof1 | Jun 23, 2017 5:16:47 PM | 30
let's blame underfed guys in skirts for funHassan Nasrallah has given his annual International Al-Quds Day speech with plenty of fire aimed at the usual suspects. The Daily Star reports: 'Nasrallah accused Saudi Arabia of "paving way for Israel" in the region.Piotr Berman | Jun 23, 2017 6:42:14 PM | 36'"It's unfortunate that Saudi Arabia is the head of terrorism and today it's holding its neighbors accountable for supporting terrorism," Nasrallah said, hinting to the recent economic sanctions against Qatar.' https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2017/Jun-23/410688-nasrallah-says-regional-conflicts-seek-to-serve-israel-interest.ashx
Al-Manar provides this report, http://english.almanar.com.lb/292250
Unfortunately, I cannot locate an English language transcript, although one might become available eventually as is usually the case.
Piotr Bermanlikklemore | Jun 23, 2017 6:49:14 PM | 37Aljazeera evil? Are you joking? ....
@Anon | Jun 23, 2017 3:47:56 PM | 24
You did not address the argument I made, namely, that Aljazeera editors apparently belong to "Muslims, who immediately set out to support it [Darwinian theory of evolution] unaware of the blasphemy and error in it." These guys pretend to be nice Wahhabis, dressing in dishdashas, their womenfolks in abayas, but in fact they spread heretical and blasphemous doctrines. However, I am more of a Khazar than a Wahhabi and I do not treat this argument seriously.
It is the fact that compared to other government supported TV/online venues, say RT or PressTV, Aljazeera is well written and edited, has plenty of valuable material, etc. It is a worthwhile place to check when you want to get a composite picture on some issues. And it irritates KSA potentates in a myriad of ways, precisely because it targets "politically engaged Muslim".
It is a good example that pluralism has inherent positive aspects, devils that quarrel are better than "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."
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Actually, I hope for many more benefits will show up from this quarrel than improved profits for Iranian produce growers. It is worthwhile to observe that Dubai, a component emirate of UAE, has gigantic economic links with Iran, which must be tolerated by overlords from Abu Dhabi: they had to bail out their cousins after real estate collapse, so they have big money stake in Dubai being prosperous. Potentially, Dubai and especially the hapless vegetable and dairy producers in KSA can lose a bundle (the latter had to invest a lot in farms for Qatari market, it is not like letting cows graze on abundant grasslands plus planting cucumbers and waiting for the rain to water them). Aljazeera and Muslim Brotherhood are more irritating to KSA and UAE than an occasional polite missive to Iran.
One pattern in Syrian civil war were persistent and bloody feuds between jihadists that formed roughly four groups:
- "salafi", presumably funded by KSA,
- "brothers", presumably funded by Qatar and Turkey,
- al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/something new that was forcing the first two groups to surrender some weapons (and money?),
- and ISIS that had more complex sources (or more hidden).
Medium term strategy of Syrian government and allies for the near future is to "de-escalate" in the western part of the country and finish off ISIS, partitioning hitherto ISIS territories in some satisfactory way, while maintaining some type of truce with the Kurds. Then finish off the jihadists, except those most directly protected by Turkey. Finally, take care of the Kurds. Some sufficiently safe federalism can be part of the solution, but nothing that would lead to enclaves with their own military forces and their own foreign policy, like Iraqi Kurdistan.
That requires the opposing parties to exhibit somewhat suicidal behavior. A big time official feud between "brothers" and "salafi + Kurds" (a pair that shares some funding but with scant mutual affection" can help a lot. Most of all, a big time feud between Turkey and KSA can stabilize the situation in which jihadists from Idlib and northern Hama observe a truce/de-escalation, while their colleagues from south Syria get clobbered, and definitely will induce them to refrain from attacking Syrian government while it is busy against ISIS. After Erdogan was prevented from marching onto Raqqa, he has two options: "Sunnistan" in eastern Syria under domination of YPG or a much smaller YPG dominated territory that can be subsequently digested. Option one is a true nightmare for Erdogan, more than a mere paranoia. However, Erdogan is also "pan-Sunni" Islamist, so he could be tempted to backstab infidels from Damascus, as he was doing before. An open feud with Sunnistan sponsors should help him to choose.
Cankles @ 25 Is that really you? If so, you should know -rawdawgbugfalo | Jun 23, 2017 6:54:19 PM | 38Look behind the curtain. This has to do with maintaining the price of oil in US$.
Qatar launches first Chinese yuan clearing hub in Middle East .
Qatar opened the Middle East's first centre for clearing transactions in the Chinese yuan on Tuesday, saying it would boost trade and investment between China and Gulf Arab economies."The launch of the region's first renminbi clearing center in Doha creates the necessary platform to realise the full potential of Qatar and the region's trade relationship with China," Qatar's central bank governor Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud al-Thani said at a ceremony.
"It will facilitate greater cross-border renminbi investment and financing business, and promote greater trade and economic links between China and the region, paving the way for better financial cooperation and enhancing the pre-eminence of Qatar as a financial hub in MENA (Middle East and North Africa)."
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's (ICBC) Doha branch is the clearing bank for the centre, which intends to serve companies from around the Middle East.A clearing bank can handle all parts of a currency transaction from when a commitment is made until it is settled, reducing costs and time taken for trading.
The centre "will improve the ease of transactions between companies in the region and China by allowing them to settle their trade directly in renminbi, drawing increased trade through Qatar and boosting bilateral and economic collaboration between Qatar and China," said ICBC chairman Jiang Jianqing.
At present, Qatar and the Gulf's other wealthy oil and gas exporters use the U.S. dollar much more than the yuan. Most of their currencies are pegged to the dollar, and most of their huge foreign currency reserves are denominated in dollars.
Laguerre @27
Date of article April 24, 2017
In April 2015, Qatar opened Qatar Renminbi Centre (QRC), the region's first clearing centre for the Chinese currency. This allows for trades priced in RMB to be cleared locally in Qatar rather than in other centres such as Shanghai or Hong Kong.ICBC has since become the designated clearance bank servicing the QRC, which has handled more than 350bn yuan ($52.6bn) since its inception.
http://emerge85.io/blog/the-middle-kingdoms-big-four-and-the-gulf~ ~ ~ ~
Trending and not very far to seeing what is now held under the table. Oil will also be priced in RMB because KSA, to maintain their share of exports to China, will need to get on board. For now, it's been reaffirmed, SA does the whipping and USA protects the Royals.Well said, I still think this is all dreamlike. Having natural gas and sharing it with Iran is a mf.Piotr Berman | Jun 23, 2017 7:34:43 PM | 40Qatar: Is it about Trump, Israel or Nascent Influence? http://wsenmw.blogspot.com/2017/06/qatar-is-it-about-trump-israel-or.html
About Sunni-Shia split. My impression is that this is mostly KSA + UAE obsession. For example, there is a substantial Shia minority in Pakistan, but the dominant thinking among the Sunnis seems to be "Muslim solidarity". There is a minority that is virulently anti-Shia, but they are politically isolated and despised exactly on the account of breaking that solidarity. After all, Pakistan forms the boundary of the Umma with non-Muslim India. I base that opinion on comments in online Pakistani newspapers, and what I have heard from an acquaintance who was a religiously conservative Sunni Pakistani. To him, the attack on Yemen by KSA was wrong "because they are Muslim". So even if Pakistan is to a certain extend in Saudi pocket, and its deep state has an extremist Sunni component, overt siding against "fellow Muslim" is out of the question.Dusty | Jun 23, 2017 7:38:26 PM | 41Egypt is another case. One can find rather isolated anti-Shia outbursts, like writings of some fossils in Al-Azhar (who are responsible for the state religion), but the government steers away from that, and in spite of hefty subsidies, it joined Yemen war only symbolically and for a very short time (unlike Sudan that really needs the cash for its mercenaries). As you move further away from the Persian Gulf, the indifference to the "split" increases. As far as Qatar and Aljazeera are concerned, probably no one detests them more than Egyptian elite, as they were valiantly fighting Muslim Brotherhood for the sake of progress with some occasional large massacres (killing several hundreds of protesters, issuing hundreds of death penalties to participants in a single protest, in absentia! incredible idiocy+cruelty). That explains why al-Sisi joined KSA against Qatar.
However, the civil war in Libya that embroils Egypt is a classic case of unexpected alliances. Egypt with a help from Russia, KSA and UAE supports the "eastern government" that bases legitimacy on democratic parliament re-assembled in Tobruq on Egyptian border, and dominated by military strongman Haftar. The latter has the best chance of all people to become a military strongman of all Libya, but apparently has meager popularity and thus, too few troops. He patched that problem by an alliance with a Salafi group that had a numerous militia, currently partitioned into smaller units and incorporated into Haftar's brigades. Even with that, his progress on the ground is very, very gradual. Against him is the government in Tripolis, legitimized by a more fresh parliament and UN/EU, plus a military force that includes several militias. Part of the parliamentary support stems from Muslim Brotherhood, and some part of military support comes from Salafi militias. There are also aspects of a "war of all against all", seems that Saharan tribes collected a lot of fresh blood feuds.
Thus Qatari+Turkish support for Tripoli government is aligned with EU, and Egyptian support for Tobruq government is aligned with Russia and KSA.
I thought I might just throw this out there and see what sticks. US policy is based on power and control. Saudi Arabia has been a good ally but it does not serve use policy or strategic goals any longer. Not really. I think the grand prize for destabilizing the middle east is Saudi Arabia. It would be the only way to truly control the development of other nations or more specifically, to control their rivalries and save the the US from complete economic breakdown. The Saudi's are being plumbed by the best of them, telling them they are you friends, we have your back and so long as Saudi Arabia loses more money and keeps lossing money in needless wars etc.The only hope for Saudi Arabia is to re-denominate oil sales in multiple currencies such as the WTO drawing rights, of course based on another formula, perhaps based on the countries that purchase the most oil. This would be the only way for the royalty to gain longevity as rulers of the country. Any other scenario spells disaster. Of course, it would be a rough go for them for a while, but in the end, a slight change in outlook and the unfair advantage given to the US would go a long way, economically to stabilizing large blocks of countries. They also could of course change their outlook on the world, but that is certainly a difficult challenge. If the Muslim world came together based on their similarities, they could be a very powerful block.
The US no longer has the financial velocity it once maintained and this is much more due to insane ideas about being a hegemon. I never thought revolution would be possible in the US, but it is coming and it won't take much. The country does not appear to have intelligence peddle back a number of policies, drunk on its own poison, it makes capitalism look disgusting. A new business model is needed, one that developes mutual trade based on respect from within the exchange itself. Saudi Arabia needs to cultivate multi-channel support for its biggest resource so that when the returns are no longer there, they will have also developed multiple avenues to prosperity. Just a thought.
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Jun 16, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
Yves here. I have been saying for some years that I did not think we would see a revolution, but more and more individuals acting out violently. That's partly the result of how community and social bonds have weakened as a result of neoliberalism but also because the officialdom has effective ways of blocking protests. With the overwhelming majority of people using smartphones, they are constantly surveilled. And the coordinated 17-city paramilitary crackdown on Occupy Wall Street shows how the officialdom moved against non-violent protests. Police have gotten only more military surplus toys since then, and crowd-dispersion technology like sound cannons only continues to advance. The only way a rebellion could succeed would be for it to be truly mass scale (as in over a million people in a single city) or by targeting crucial infrastructure.By Gaius Publius , a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius , Tumblr and Facebook . GP article archive here . Originally published at DownWithTyranny
"[T]he super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues to grow. An analysis of 2016 data found that the poorest five deciles of the world population own about $410 billion in total wealth. As of June 8, 2017 , the world's richest five men owned over $400 billion in wealth. Thus, on average, each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people."
-Paul Buchheit, Alternet"Congressman Steve Scalise, Three Others Shot at Alexandria, Virginia, Baseball Field"
-NBC News, June 14, 2017"4 killed, including gunman, in shooting at UPS facility in San Francisco"
-ABC7News, June 14, 2017"Seriously? Another multiple shooting? So many guns. So many nut-bars. So many angry nut-bars with guns."
-MarianneW via Twitter"We live in a world where "multiple dead" in San Francisco shooting can't cut through the news of another shooting in the same day."
-SamT via Twitter"If the rich are determined to extract the last drop of blood, expect the victims to put up a fuss. And don't expect that fuss to be pretty. I'm not arguing for social war; I'm arguing for justice and peace."
- Yours trulyWhen the social contract breaks from above, it breaks from below as well.
Until elites stand down and stop the brutal squeeze , expect more after painful more of this. It's what happens when societies come apart. Unless elites (of both parties) stop the push for "profit before people," policies that dominate the whole of the Neoliberal Era , there are only two outcomes for a nation on this track, each worse than the other. There are only two directions for an increasingly chaotic state to go, chaotic collapse or sufficiently militarized "order" to entirely suppress it.
As with the climate, I'm concerned about the short term for sure - the storm that kills this year, the hurricane that kills the next - but I'm also concerned about the longer term as well. If the beatings from "our betters" won't stop until our acceptance of their "serve the rich" policies improves, the beatings will never stop, and both sides will take up the cudgel.
Then where will we be?
America's Most Abundant Manufactured Product May Be Pain
I look out the window and see more and more homeless people, noticeably more than last year and the year before. And they're noticeably scruffier, less "kemp," if that makes sense to you (it does if you live, as I do, in a community that includes a number of them as neighbors).
The squeeze hasn't let up, and those getting squeezed out of society have nowhere to drain to but down - physically, economically, emotionally. The Case-Deaton study speaks volumes to this point. The less fortunate economically are already dying of drugs and despair. If people are killing themselves in increasing numbers, isn't it just remotely maybe possible they'll also aim their anger out as well?
The pot isn't boiling yet - these shootings are random, individualized - but they seem to be piling on top of each other. A hard-boiling, over-flowing pot may not be far behind. That's concerning as well, much moreso than even the random horrid events we recoil at today.
Many More Ways Than One to Be a Denier
My comparison above to the climate problem was deliberate. It's not just the occasional storms we see that matter. It's also that, seen over time, those storms are increasing, marking a trend that matters even more. As with climate, the whole can indeed be greater than its parts. There's more than one way in which to be a denier of change.
These are not just metaphors. The country is already in a pre-revolutionary state ; that's one huge reason people chose Trump over Clinton, and would have chosen Sanders over Trump. The Big Squeeze has to stop, or this will be just the beginning of a long and painful path. We're on a track that nations we have watched - tightly "ordered" states, highly chaotic ones - have trod already. While we look at them in pity, their example stares back at us.
Mes petits sous, mon petit cri de coeur.
elstprof , June 16, 2017 at 3:03 am
Moneta , June 16, 2017 at 8:08 amBut the elite aren't going to stand down, whatever that might mean. The elite aren't really the "elite", they are owners and controllers of certain flows of economic activity. We need to call it what it is and actively organize against it. Publius's essay seems too passive at points, too passive voice. (Yes, it's a cry from the heart in a prophetic mode, and on that level, I'm with it.)
"If people are killing themselves in increasing numbers, isn't it just remotely maybe possible they'll also aim their anger out as well?"
Not necessarily. What Lacan called the "Big Other" is quite powerful. We internalize a lot of socio-economic junk from our cultural inheritance, especially as it's been configured over the last 40 years - our values, our body images, our criteria for judgment, our sense of what material well-being consists, etc. Ellis's American Psycho is the great satire of our time, and this time is not quite over yet. Dismemberment reigns.
The college students I deal with have internalized a lot of this. In their minds, TINA is reality. Everything balances for the individual on a razor's edge of failure of will or knowledge or hacktivity. It's all personal, almost never collective - it's a failure toward parents or peers or, even more grandly, what success means in America.
The idea that agency could be a collective action of a union for a strike isn't even on the horizon. And at the same time, these same students don't bat an eye at socialism. They're willing to listen.
But unions don't matter in our TINA. Corporations do.
jefemt , June 16, 2017 at 9:45 amMost of the elite do not understand the money system. They do not understand how different sectors have benefitted from policies and/or subsidies that increased the money flows into these. So they think they deserve their money more than those who toiled in sectors with less support.
Furthermore, our system promotes specialists and disregards generalists this leads to a population of individualists who can't see the big picture.
Dead Dog , June 16, 2017 at 3:09 amBAU, TINA, BAU!! BOHICA!!!
RWood , June 16, 2017 at 12:24 pmThank you Gaius, a thoughtful post. That social contract is hard to pin down and define – probably has different meanings to all of us, but you are right, it is breaking down. We no longer feel that our governments are working for us.
Of tangential interest, Turnbull has just announced another gun amnesty targeting guns that people no longer need and a tightening of some of the ownership laws.
willem , June 16, 2017 at 2:20 pmSo this inheritance matures: http://www.nature.com/news/fight-the-silencing-of-gun-research-1.22139
Fiery Hunt , June 16, 2017 at 3:17 amOne problem is the use of the term "social contract", implying that there is some kind of agreement ( = consensus) on what that is. I don't remember signing any "contract".
Disturbed Voter , June 16, 2017 at 6:33 amI fear for my friends, I fear for my family. They do not know how ravenous the hounds behind nor ahead are. For myself? I imagine myself the same in a Mad Max world. It will be more clear, and perception shattering, to most whose lives allow the ignoring of gradual chokeholds, be them political or economic, but those of us who struggle daily, yearly, decadely with both, will only say Welcome to the party, pals.
JTMcPhee , June 16, 2017 at 6:44 amIncreasing population, decreasing resources, increasingly expensive remaining resources on a per unit basis, unresolved trashing of the environment and an political economy that forces people to do more with less all the time (productivity improvement is mandatory, not optional, to handle the exponential function) much pain will happen even if everyone is equal.
Each person does what is right in their own eyes, but the net effect is impoverishment and destruction. Life is unfair, indeed. A social contract is a mutual suicide pact, whether you renegotiate it or not. This is Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club, is we don't speak of Fight Club. Go to the gym, toughen up, while you still can.
sierra7 , June 16, 2017 at 11:22 am"Social contract:" nice Enlightment construct, out of University by City. Not a real thing, just a very incomplete shorthand to attempt to fiddle the masses and give a name to meta-livability.
Always with the "contract" meme, as if there are no more durable and substantive notions of how humans in small and large groups might organize and interact Or maybe the notion is the best that can be achieved? Recalling that as my Contracts professor in law school emphasized over and over, in "contracts" there are no rights in the absence of effective remedies. It being a Boston law school, the notion was echoed in Torts, and in Commercial Paper and Sales and, tellingly, in Constitutional Law and Federal Jurisdiction, and even in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure. No remedy, no right. What remedies are there in "the system," for the "other halves" of the "social contract," the "have-naught" halves?
When honest "remedies under law" become nugatory, there's always the recourse to direct action of course with zero guarantee of redress
Kuhio Kane , June 16, 2017 at 12:33 pm"What remedies are there in "the system," for the "other halves" of the "social contract," the "have-naught" halves?" Ah yes the ultimate remedy is outright rebellion against the highest authorities .with as you say, " zero guarantee of redress."
But, history teaches us that that path will be taken ..the streets. It doesn't (didn't) take a genius to see what was coming back in the late 1960's on .regarding the beginnings of the revolt(s) by big money against organized labor. Having been very involved in observing, studying and actually active in certain groups back then, the US was acting out in other countries particularly in the Southern Hemisphere, against any social progression, repressing, arresting (thru its surrogates) torturing, killing any individuals or groups that opposed that infamous theory of "free market capitalism". It had a very definite "creep" effect, northwards to the mainstream US because so many of our major corporations were deeply involved with our covert intelligence operatives and objectives (along with USAID and NED). I used to tell my friends about what was happening and they would look at me as if I was a lunatic. The agency for change would be "organized labor", but now, today that agency has been trashed enough where so many of the young have no clue as to what it all means. The ultimate agenda along with "globalization" is the complete repression of any opposition to the " spread of money markets" around the world". The US intends to lead; whether the US citizenry does is another matter. Hence the streets.
bdy , June 16, 2017 at 1:32 pmJTMcFee, you have provided the most important aspect to this mirage of 'social contract'. The "remedies" clearly available to lawless legislation rest outside the realm of a contract which has never existed.
Moneta , June 16, 2017 at 6:54 amThe Social Contract, ephemeral, reflects perfectly what contracts have become. Older rulings frequently labeled clauses unconscionable - a tacit recognition that so few of the darn things are actually agreed upon. Rather, a party with resources, options and security imposes the agreement on a party in some form of crisis (nowadays the ever present crisis of paycheck to paycheck living – or worse). Never mind informational asymmetries, necessity drives us into crappy rental agreements and debt promises with eyes wide open. And suddenly we're all agents of the state.
Unconscionable clauses are now separately initialed in an "I dare you to sue me" shaming gambit. Meanwhile the mythical Social Contract has been atomized into 7 1/2 billion personal contracts with unstated, shifting remedies wholly tied to the depths of pockets.
Solidarity, of course. Hard when Identity politics lubricate a labor market that insists on specialization, and talented children of privilege somehow manage to navigate the new entrepreneurism while talented others look on in frustration. The resistance insists on being leaderless (fueled in part IMHO by the uncomfortable fact that effective leaders are regularly killed or co-opted). And the overriding message of resistance is negative: "Stop it!"
But that's where we are. Again, just my opinion: but the pivotal step away from the jackpot is to convince or coerce our wealthiest not to cash in. Stop making and saving so much stinking money, y'all.
Susan the other , June 16, 2017 at 1:01 pmThe pension system is based on profits. Nothing will change until the profits disappear and the top quintile starts falling off the treadmill.
roadrider , June 16, 2017 at 8:33 amand there's the Karma bec. even now we see a private banking system synthesizing an economy to maintain asset values and profits and they have the nerve to blame it on social spending. I think Giaus's term 'Denier' is perfect for all those vested practitioners of profit-capitalism at any cost. They've already failed miserably. For the most part they're just too proud to admit it and, naturally, they wanna hang on to "their" money. I don't think it will take a revolution – in fact it would be better if no chaos ensued – just let these arrogant goofballs stew in their own juice a while longer. They are killing themselves.
Realist , June 16, 2017 at 8:41 amThere's a social contract? Who knew?
DJG , June 16, 2017 at 9:24 amWhen I hear so much impatient and irritable complaint, so much readiness to replace what we have by guardians for us all, those supermen, evoked somewhere from the clouds, whom none have seen and none are ready to name, I lapse into a dream, as it were. I see children playing on the grass; their voices are shrill and discordant as children's are; they are restive and quarrelsome; they cannot agree to any common plan; their play annoys them; it goes poorly. And one says, let us make Jack the master; Jack knows all about it; Jack will tell us what each is to do and we shall all agree. But Jack is like all the rest; Helen is discontented with her part and Henry with his, and soon they fall again into their old state. No, the children must learn to play by themselves; there is no Jack the master. And in the end slowly and with infinite disappointment they do learn a little; they learn to forbear, to reckon with another, accept a little where they wanted much, to live and let live, to yield when they must yield; perhaps, we may hope, not to take all they can. But the condition is that they shall be willing at least to listen to one another, to get the habit of pooling their wishes. Somehow or other they must do this, if the play is to go on; maybe it will not, but there is no Jack, in or out of the box, who can come to straighten the game. -Learned Hand
JEHR , June 16, 2017 at 11:17 amHere in oh-so-individualistic Chicago, I have been noting the fraying for some time: It isn't just the massacres in the highly segregated black neighborhoods, some of which are now in terminal decline as the inhabitants, justifiably, flee. The typical Chicagoan wanders the streets connected to a phone, so as to avoid eye contact, all the while dressed in what look like castoffs. Meanwhile, Midwesterners, who tend to be heavy, are advertisements for the obesity epidemic: Yet obesity has a metaphorical meaning as the coat of lipids that a person wears to keep the world away.
My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash: Think Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. Some trash is carefully posed: Cups with straws on windsills, awaiting the Paris Agreement Pixie, who will clean up after these oh-so-earnest environmentalists.
Meanwhile, I just got a message from my car-share service: They are cutting back on the number of cars on offer. Too much vandalism.
Are these things caused by pressure from above? Yes, in part: The class war continues, and the upper class has won. As commenter relstprof notes, any kind of concerted action is now nearly impossible. Instead of the term "social contract," I might substitute "solidarity." Is there solidarity? No, solidarity was destroyed as a policy of the Reagan administration, as well as by fantasies that Americans are individualistic, and here we are, 40 years later, dealing with the rubble of the Obama administration and the Trump administration.
jrs , June 16, 2017 at 1:09 pmDJG: My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash: Think Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. Some trash is carefully posed: Cups with straws on windsills, awaiting the Paris Agreement Pixie, who will clean up after these oh-so-earnest environmentalists.
Yes, the trash bit is hard to understand. What does it stand for? Does it mean, We can infinitely disregard our surroundings by throwing away plastic, cardboard, metal and paper and nothing will happen? Does it mean, There is more where that came from! Does it mean, I don't care a fig for the earth? Does it mean, Human beings are stupid and, unlike pigs, mess up their immediate environment and move on? Does it mean, Nothing–that we are just nihilists waiting to die? I am so fed up with the garbage strewn on the roads and in the woods where I live; I used to pick it up and could collect as much as 9 garbage bags of junk in 9 days during a 4 kilometer walk. I don't pick up any more because I am 77 and cannot keep doing it.
However, I am certain that strewn garbage will surely be the last national flag waving in the breeze as the anthem plays junk music and we all succumb to our terrible future.
visitor , June 16, 2017 at 1:04 pmRelated to this, I thought one day of who probably NEVER gets any appreciation but strives to make things nicer, anyone planning or planting the highway strips (government workers maybe although it could be convicts also unfortunately, I'm not sure). Yes highways are ugly, yes they will destroy the world, but some of the planting strips are sometimes genuinely nice. So they add some niceness to the ugly and people still litter of course.
Big River Bandido , June 16, 2017 at 1:47 pmThe trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the public space/environment as a shared, common good. Thus, streets, parks and public space might be soiled by litter that nobody cares to put away in trash bins properly, while simultaneously the interior of houses/apartments, and attached gardens if any, are kept meticulously clean.
Basically, the world people care about stops outside their dwellings, because they do not feel it is "theirs" or that they participate in its possession in a genuine way. It belongs to the "town administration", or to a "private corporation", or to the "government" - and if they feel they have no say in the ownership, management, regulation and benefits thereof, why should they care? Let the town administration/government/corporation do the clean-up - we already pay enough taxes/fees/tolls, and "they" are always putting up more restrictions on how to use everything, so
In conclusion: the phenomenon of litter/trash is another manifestation of a fraying social contract.
visitor , June 16, 2017 at 2:39 pmThe trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the public space/environment as a shared, common good.
There *is* no public space anymore. Every public good, every public space is now fair game for commercial exploitation.
I live in NYC, and just yesterday as I attempted to refill my MetroCard, the machine told me it was expired and I had to replace it. The replacement card doesn't look at all like a MetroCard with the familiar yellow and black graphic saying "MetroCard". Instead? It's an ad. For a fucking insurance company. And so now, every single time that I go somewhere on the subway, I have to see an ad from Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
DJG , June 16, 2017 at 9:37 amThere *is* no public space anymore. Every public good, every public space is now fair game for commercial exploitation.
And as a result, people no longer care about it - they do not feel it is their commonwealth any longer.
Did you notice whether the NYC subway got increasingly dirty/littered as the tentacles of privatization reached everywhere? Just curious.
Daniel F. , June 16, 2017 at 10:44 amThe importance of the end of solidarity – that is, of the almost-murderous impulses by the upper classes to destroy any kind of solidarity. From Yves's posting of Yanis Varoufakis's analysis of the newest terms of the continuing destruction of Greece:
With regard to labour market reforms, the Eurogroup welcomes the adopted legislation safeguarding previous reforms on collective bargaining and bringing collective dismissals in line with best EU practices.
I see! "Safeguarding previous reforms on collective bargaining" refers, of course, to the 2012 removal of the right to collective bargaining and the end to trades union representation for each and every Greek worker. Our government was elected in January 2015 with an express mandate to restore these workers' and trades unions' rights. Prime Minister Tsipras has repeatedly pledged to do so, even after our falling out and my resignation in July 2015. Now, yesterday, his government consented to this piece of Eurogroup triumphalism that celebrates the 'safeguarding' of the 2012 'reforms'. In short, the SYRIZA government has capitulated on this issue too: Workers' and trades' unions' rights will not be restored. And, as if that were not bad enough, "collective dismissals" will be brought "in line with best EU practices". What this means is that the last remaining constraints on corporations, i.e. a restriction on what percentage of workers can be fired each month, is relaxed. Make no mistake: The Eurogroup is telling us that, now that employers are guaranteed the absence of trades unions, and the right to fire more workers, growth enhancement will follow suit! Let's not hold our breath!
Bobby Gladd , June 16, 2017 at 12:01 pmThe so-called "Elites"? Stand down? Right. Every year I look up the cardinal topics discussed at the larger economic forums and conferences (mainly Davos and G8), and some variation of "The consequences of rising inequality" is a recurring one. Despite this, nothing ever comes out if them. I imagine they go something like this:
- "-Oh hi Mark. Racism is bad.
- -Definitely. So is inequality, right, Tim?
- -Sure, wish we could do something about it. HEY GUYS, HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT MY NEW SCHEME TO BUY OUT NEW AND UPCOMING COMPANIES TO MAKE MORE MONEY?"
A wet dream come true, both for an AnCap and a communist conspiracy theorist. I'm by no means either. However, I think capitalism has already failed and can't go on for much longer. Conditions will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement or relief.
I'd very much like to be proven wrong.
Archangel , June 16, 2017 at 11:33 am"Conditions will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement or relief." Frase's Quadrant Four. Hierarchy + Scarcity = Exterminism (From "Four Futures" )
oh , June 16, 2017 at 12:10 pmReminds me of that one quip I saw from a guy who, why he always had to have two pigs to eat up his garbage, said that if he had only one pig, it will eat only when it wants to, but if there were two pigs, each one would eat so the other pig won't get to it first. Our current economic system in a nutshell – pigs eating crap so deny it to others first. "Greed is good".
Vatch , June 16, 2017 at 12:37 pmOur country is rife with rent seeking pigs who will stoop lower and lower to feed their greed.
Chauncey Gardiner , June 16, 2017 at 1:00 pmIn today's Links section there's this: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/jun/14/tax-evaders-exposed-why-super-rich-are-even-richer-than-we-thought which has relevance for the discussion of the collapsing social contract.
JTMcPhee , June 16, 2017 at 1:21 pmDon't know that the two avenues Gaius mentioned are the only two roads our society can travel. In support of this view, I recall a visit to a secondary city in Russia for a few weeks in the early 1990s after the collapse of the USSR. Those were difficult times economically and psychologically for ordinary citizens of that country. Alcoholism was rampant, emotional illness and suicide rates among men of working age were high, mortality rates generally were rising sharply, and birth rates were falling. Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful and educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class, and the related emergence of organized criminal networks. There was also adequate food, and critical public infrastructure was maintained, keeping in mind this was shortly after the Chernobyl disaster.
Here in the US the New Deal and other legislation helped preserve social order in the 1930s. Yves also raises an important point in her preface that can provide support for the center by those who are able to do so under the current economic framework. That glue is to participate in one's community; whether it is volunteering at a school, the local food bank, community-oriented social clubs, or in a multitude of other ways; regardless of whether your community is a small town or a large city.
" Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful and educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class, and the related emergence of organized criminal networks."
None of which applies to the Imperium, of course. There's glue, all right, but it's the kind that is used for flooring in Roach Motels (TM), and those horrific rat and mouse traps that stick the rodent to a large rectangle of plastic, where they die eventually of exhaustion and dehydration and starvation The rat can gnaw off a leg that's glued down, but then it tips over and gets glued down by the chest or face or butt
I have to note that several people I know are fastidious about picking up trash other people "throw away." I do it, when I'm up to bending over. I used to be rude about it - one young attractive woman dumped a McDonald's bag and her ashtray out the window of her car at one of our very long Florida traffic lights. I got out of my car, used the mouth of the McDonald's bag to scoop up most of the lipsticked butts, and threw them back into her car. Speaking of mouths, that woman with the artfully painted lips sure had one on her
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May 16, 2017 | www.unz.com
And what if there really is a conspiracy against Donald Trump being orchestrated within the various national security agencies that are part of the United States government? The president has been complaining for months about damaging leaks emanating from the intelligence community and the failure of Congress to pay any attention to the illegal dissemination of classified information. It is quite possible that Trump has become aware that there is actually something going on and that something just might be a conspiracy to delegitimize and somehow remove him from office.President Trump has also been insisting that the "Russian thing" is a made-up story, a view that I happen to agree with. I recently produced my own analysis of the possibility that there is in progress a soft, or stealth or silent coup, call it what you will, underway directed against the president and that, if it exists, it is being directed by former senior officials from the Obama White House. Indeed, it is quite plausible to suggest that it was orchestrated within the Obama White House itself before the government changed hands at the inauguration on January 20 th . In line with that thinking, some observers are now suggesting that Comey might well have been party to the conspiracy and his dismissal would have been perfectly justified based on his demonstrated interference in both the electoral process and in his broadening of the acceptable role of his own Bureau, which Trump has described as "showboating."
Two well-informed observers of the situation have recently joined in the discussion, Robert Parry of Consortiumnews and former CIA senior analyst Ray McGovern of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. McGovern has noted, as have I, that there is one individual who has been curiously absent from the list of former officials who have been called in to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee. That is ex-CIA Director John Brennan, who many have long considered an extreme Obama/Hillary Clinton loyalist long rumored to be at the center of the information damaging to Team Trump sent to Washington by friendly intelligence services, including the British.
- Ray suggests that Brennan and also Comey may been at the center of a "Deep State" combined CIA-NSA-FBI cabal working to discredit the Trump candidacy and delegitimize his presidency. Brennan in particular was uniquely well placed to fabricate the Russian hacker narrative that has been fully embraced by Congress and the media even though no actual evidence supporting that claim has yet been produced. As WikiLeaks has now revealed that the CIA had the technical ability to hack into sites surreptitiously while leaving behind footprints that would attribute the hack to someone else, including the Russians, it does not take much imagination to consider that the alleged trail to Moscow might have been fabricated. If that is so, this false intelligence has in turn proven to be of immense value to those seeking to present "proof" that the Russian government handed the presidency to Donald Trump.
- Robert Parry asked in an article on May 10 th whether we are seeing is "Watergate redux or 'Deep State' coup?" and then followed up with a second Piece "The 'Soft Coup' of Russia-gate" on the 13 th . In other words, is this all a cover-up of wrongdoing by the White House akin to President Richard Nixon's firing of Watergate independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignations of both the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General or is it something quite different, an undermining of an elected president who has not actually committed any "high crimes and misdemeanors" to force his removal from office.
Like Parry, I am reluctant to embrace conspiracy theories, in my case largely because I believe a conspiracy is awfully hard to sustain. The federal government leaks like a sieve and if more than two conspirators ever meet in the CIA basement it would seem to me their discussion would become public knowledge within forty-eight hours, but perhaps what we are seeing here is less a formal arrangement than a group of individuals who are loosely connected while driven by a common objective.
Parry sees the three key players in the scheme as John Brennan of CIA, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and James Comey of the FBI. Comey's role in the "coup" was key as it consisted of using his office to undercut both Hillary Clinton and Trump, neither of whom was seen as a truly suitable candidate by the Deep State. He speculates that a broken election might well have resulted in a vote in the House of Representatives to elect the new president, a process that might have produced a Colin Powell presidency as Powell actually received three votes in the Electoral College and therefore was an acceptable candidate under the rules governing the electoral process.
Yes, the scheme is bizarre, but Parry carefully documents how Russiagate has developed and how the national security and intelligence organs have been key players as it moved along, often working by leaking classified information. And President Barack Obama was likely the initiator, notably so when he de facto authorized the wide distribution of raw intelligence on Trump and the Russians through executive order. Parry notes, as would I, that to date no actual evidence has been presented to support allegations that Russia sought to influence the U.S. election and/or that Trump associates were somehow coopted by Moscow's intelligence services as part of the process. Nevertheless, anyone even vaguely connected with Trump who also had contact with Russia or Russians has been regarded as a potential traitor. Carter Page, for example, who was investigated under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, was under suspicion because he made a speech in Moscow which was mildly critical of the west's interaction with Russia after the fall of communism.
Parry's point is that there is a growing Washington consensus that consists of traditional liberals and progressives as well as Democratic globalist interventionists and neoconservatives who believe that Donald Trump must be removed from office no matter what it takes.
The interventionists and neocons in particular already control most of the foreign policy mechanisms but they continue to see Trump as a possible impediment to their plans for aggressive action against a host of enemies, most particularly Russia. As they are desirous of bringing down Trump "legally" through either impeachment or Article 25 of the Constitution which permits removal for incapacity, it might be termed a constitutional coup, though the other labels cited above also fit.
The rationale Trump haters have fabricated is simple: the president and his team colluded with the Russians to rig the 2016 election in his favor, which, if true, would provide grounds for impeachment. The driving force, in terms of the argument being made, is that removing Trump must be done "for the good of the country" and to "correct a mistake made by the American voters."
The mainstream media is completely on board of the process, including the outlets that flatter themselves by describing their national stature, most notably the New York Times and Washington Post.So what is to be done? For starters, until Donald Trump has unambiguously broken a law the critics should take a valium and relax. He is an elected president and his predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama certainly did plenty of things that in retrospect do not bear much scrutiny. Folks like Ray McGovern and Robert Parry should be listened to even when they are being provocative in their views. They are not, to be sure, friends of the White House in any conventional way and are not apologists for those in power, quite the contrary. Ray has been strongly critical of the current foreign policy, most particularly of the expansion of various wars, claims of Damascus's use of chemical weapons, and the cruise missile attack on Syria. Robert in his latest article describes Trump as narcissistic and politically incompetent. But their legitimate concerns are that we are moving in a direction that is far more dangerous than Trump. A soft coup engineered by the national security and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to our democracy than anything Donald Trump can do. Are They Really Out to Get Trump? Sometimes paranoia is justified
Philip Giraldi May 16, 2017 1,600 Words
Dan Hayes , May 16, 2017 at 4:18 am GMT
exiled off mainstreet , May 16, 2017 at 5:26 am GMTBrennan is a particularly unsavory character. There has been some baying-at-the-moon speculation that he is a Moslem convert!
utu , May 16, 2017 at 5:36 am GMTThe coup, if successful, would probably mean the end of what would traditionally be considered to be a republican form of government in the US and its replacement by a deep state dictatorship.
In light of what is being used, a phony claim of Russian interference with the US political system, the danger that nuclear war might be the outcome of this coup is real.
jilles dykstra , May 16, 2017 at 5:51 am GMTI don't know who Robert Parry is but to me this Colin Powell stuff is pure nonsense. At the same time my answer to the question "Are They Really Out to Get Trump?" is affirmative. Republicans and Democrats want Trump out and Pence in. The operation with Flynn who allegedly deceived Pence was part of this plan. That Trump fired Flynn was his greatest mistake in this game. It was not fatal yet. This was Their plan since the election or even earlier since Republican convention: have Trump step down and have Pence take over. After April 4th it seemed that They got Trump where They wanted him to be. Trump even became presidential. The escalation of rhetoric against North Korea over following weekend and week reinforced this perception until it turned out that it was all fake. There was no fleet steaming to Korea. Media realized they were played by Trump. During this time Trump and Tillerson in particular got some breathing space. The pre-April 4 policy of agreeing with Russia on Syria continued. Apparently Russia understood that the missile attack on Syria was just part of the game. It was not personal. More recently the US agreed to safe zones plan by Russia, Syria, Iran and Turkey. One should expect a false flag of gas attack or accidental bombing by US air force of Syrian forces to happen soon – broadcasted all night before the start of the US media news cycle by BBC, so US media, all talking heads memorize all talking points.
While it is possible that Trump behaves erratically w/o well thought out plans we must give him a benefit of doubt and assume that there is a deep reason for firing Comey. Trump is fighting for his life. While he would prefer to be presidential and enjoy easy going times and provide peace and safety for his family by know he knows that nothing will satisfy Them. They want him out! Erratic Trump and confused and chaotic WH is a meme which They and Their media want to plant and reinforce. That's why we hear about it all the time. But how to explain the firing of Comey? I would look for the answer at DOJ. Initially their hands were tied up but slowly they showed that there is new leadership at DOJ that was working for Trump for a change. Their independence of the Deep State was demonstrated by forcing Israel police to arrest Mossad operative/patsy for the wave of world wide anti-semitic hoaxes that were meant to undermine and compromise Trump. This is the proof that DOJ and part of FBI finally is strong enough and working for Trump. What next do they want to do? If they want to squash this "collusion with Russia" false narrative that is paralyzing the administration and in fact all belt way they must hit at those who originated this narrative, meaning Hillary Clinton and Obama. To do it they need to have a full control of FBI. Comey is gone. McCabe must go next. Will DOJ and new FBI go after Susan Rice, Sally Yates and Loretta Lynch? If they do this will lead to Obama. Will they go after Hillary Clinton and her emails? Will they secure Anthony Weiner computer? Does it still exist? Who will be nominated to replace Comey? What Trump will have to promise GOP to have him approved?
The bottom line is that Trump is fighting for his life.
Anon , May 16, 2017 at 6:05 am GMTOf course they are. The USA is not different from other western countries, such as GB, France, Austria, Italy, Greece, Netherlands. In each of these countries the battle is going on between the establishment, and those who want to rid themselves of this establishment.
GB is the first country where maybe this succeeded, but, as in the USA, the GB establishment and the EU establishment do anything to prevent that things really change.
The battle is between trying to dominate the world, neoliberalism, destruction of nation states, power of money, on the one hand, and nationalism, more or less certain jobs, rejection of wars, power of governments, on the other hand.
In France one sees that once again the establishment won, 60% of the French still support the establishment, 40% rejects it.
In other countries more or less the same.
The opposing views make governing increasingly difficult, two months after the Dutch elections the efforts to contrue a government are a failure. Belgium was more than a year without a government. In Spain one government after another. The establishment now fears that Austria will turn around. Until now Brussels, by threats and cajoling, prevented a rebellion against Brussels in Poland and Hungary. The Greek rebellion failed completely.
utu , May 16, 2017 at 6:08 am GMTWhite House Leaks and the "Muh Russia" Seesaw
John Brown , May 16, 2017 at 6:09 am GMTForeign Minister Sergey Lavrov had sought to sneak a recording device into the White House during last week's visit.
utu , May 16, 2017 at 6:52 am GMT"A soft coup engineered by the national security and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to our democracy than anything Donald Trump can do" concludes the writer.
What is amazing is that Mr Giraldi still believes the USA is a democracy. Maybe if one compares it with China. Anyway, "a soft coup" has already happened in you history -- Kennedy's assassination by the deep state- and life just went on in the "greatest democracy" in the earth.
A "soft coup" against Donald Trump will be in fact an improvement. The "narcissist" president won't be killed. It will be a soft clean coup. Progress.
The Alarmist , May 16, 2017 at 8:23 am GMTPerhaps this is the indication of where Trump and DOJ are going: Monday during the 10 p.m. ET news broadcast on Fox's Washington, D.C. affiliate WTTG, correspondent Marina Marraco said an investigation by former D.C. homicide detective Rod Wheeler found that the now-deceased Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich had been emailing with WikiLeaks.
But the Deep State respond with: Deep State Leaks Highly Classified Info to Washington Post to Smear President Trump
alexander , May 16, 2017 at 8:52 am GMTDespite the TV image, it is rare for a CEO to outright sack one of his top executives. The story of dinners where Comey made his pitch to stay rings true to what I have seen in real life. Trump probably asked Comey if he wouldn't be happier returning to private business where he made a boatload more money, and Comey, drunk on the power of high public office just wouldn't pull the trigger for him.
Comey was a goner in November he just wouldn't go quietly and on his own accord, no doubt for the reasons suggested in this piece a so-called higher calling and his own inflated sense of service to his country.
for-the-record , May 16, 2017 at 8:53 am GMTDear Mr. Giraldi,
Thanks for another fine article.
Certainly writers like Robert Parry and Ray Mcgovern, as well as yourself, have earned the highest of marks from internet readers around the globe, anxious for some integrity of analysis , as they seek to understand our nation's policy decisions. As long as gentlemen like you, as well as others, keep writing , you will find your readership growing at an exponential rate.
Having just noticed the latest by-line in Antiwar.com, I am forced to raise the question we should all be asking ourselves "Was it Russia or was it .. Seth Rich ? "
If there was indeed a "soft coup" in our country, did it not occur at the DNC convention when our back room oligarchs decided to "putsch" Bernie Sanders out of the race, and gift the nomination to Hillary ?
Was it not Bernie Sanders who was igniting the young progressive liberal base by the tens of millions ? Was it not Bernie who was gaining enormous momentum as the race for the nomination went on ? Was it not Bernie's "message" that began to ring true for so many voters across the country ?
Was it not Bernie Sanders who may well have swept the DNC nomination, were it not for the "dirty pool" being played out in the back room ?.
According to the retired homicide detective, hired by the family of Seth Rich to investigate their son's bizarre murder, it was Seth Rich who WAS in contact with Wikileaks.
(For all those who don't know who Seth Rich was , he was the 27 year old "voter data director" at the DNC, shot to death on july 10, 2016, in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of Washington D.C.)
In an interview three days after Seth Rich was found dead, Julian Assange intimated, too, that Seth Rich HAD contacted Wikileaks .NOT Russia.
The homicide detective hired by the family , also pointed out, after doing some rudimentary due diligence, that word had come down through the DC mayor's office to stymie its own detectives in the murder investigation of Mr. Rich. Strange thing, especially when we are dealing with a homicide .No, Mr Giraldi ? If the Seth Rich murder was a "botched robbery" as is claimed, why won't the DC police release Seth's laptop computer to his family ?
We are all aware there were "shenanigans" going on in the DNC that put the kibosh on the Bernie nomination.(we all know this)
This makes sense too, given the fact that the DNC party bosses and their oligarchs, wanted Bernie running in the general election against the Donald like they wanted a "hole in the head". What we "cannot" see ..is how decisive Bernie's margin of victory might have been, Nor can we see what "crimes" were committed to ensure Hillary's run at the W. H. It is not much of a stretch to assume Seth Rich had hard evidence, perhaps of multiple counts of treasonous fraud and other sorted felonies that would have brought down "the back room" of the DNC.
Not good for the party..not good for its oligarchs .and not good for their Hillary anointment.
"Russia-gate" may prove to be the most concerted effort, by the powers that be, to DEFLECT from an investigation into their OWN "real"criminality .
How savvy and how clever they are to manipulate the public's perceptions, through Big Media, by grafting the allegations of the very crimes they may well have committed .onto Russia, the Donald, and Vladimir Putin.
Clever, clever, clever.
Can any of us imagine, how cold a day in hell it will be before Rachel Maddow(or any MSM "journalist") asks some basic questions about the Seth Rich laptop .or what was on it ?
Sub zero.
mp , May 16, 2017 at 9:29 am GMTMr. Giralidi,
I would be very interested in your take on the latest impeachable "scandal", that Trump revealed unrevealable top secrets to Lavrov and Kislyak during their recent White House meeting. Among other things, how would the Washington Post know the specifics of the Trump-Lavrov conversation? Is the White House bugged? And if an intelligence source was somehow really compromised, is advertising that fact in the Washington Post (presumably on the front page) really the wisest course?
animalogic , May 16, 2017 at 10:10 am GMTTrump has turned out to be very weak. Maybe he just doesn't believe in anything, so it doesn't matter to him. Or maybe he has some ideas, but has no clue about implementation. He's going to see the Tribe next week. That will tell us a lot, I'm thinking. But it's a lot that we probably already know or at least can guess.
geokat62 , May 16, 2017 at 11:08 am GMT"A soft coup engineered by the national security and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to our democracy than anything Donald Trump can do."
Until further notice, that is absolutely correct. It needs to be recalled – ad nauseam – that Russia-gate, or whatever rubbish its called, is a LIE. There is NO, repeat NO evidence of ANY wrong-doing by Trump re the Russians. The MSM & various elements of the "establishment" should suicide NOW from pure SHAME.KenH , May 16, 2017 at 11:10 am GMTA soft coup engineered by the national security and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to our democracy than anything Donald Trump can do.
For more dangerous to American democracy has been the ZOG engineered by the "Friends of Zion," but, unfortunately, there is little chance there will ever be a Zion-gate investigation.
jilles dykstra , May 16, 2017 at 11:32 am GMTTrump was right in firing Comey. An open ended investigation that hasn't yielded a scintilla of evidence of collusion with Russia after one year is not acceptable. Such an investigation would not have been tolerated if the target was a Marxist mulatto by the name of Barack Hussein Obama. Blacks would have rioted in response while the media cheered them on.
If there's a Constitutional crisis then it's that the deep state apparatus in the form of the various alphabet soup intelligence agencies have the power to plot a coup against a duly elected president. They need to be stripped of much of their power and reformed but it's probably already too late for that.
I thought since Trump went from advocating a humble, non-interventionist foreign policy to loud and proud neo-conservative (in less than 100 days) that that would buy him protection from deep state machinations and endear him to the corrupt Washington, D.C. establishment. For a time he was even making "never Trumper" little (((William Kristol))) coo with delight which is no small feat. Moreover, he's a lickspittle of Israel which seems a prerequisite for a presidential candidate.
The only thing I can think of is that even though Trump's picking up where Dubya and Obama left off on foreign policy, the deep state knows that Trump can be totally unpredictable and change on a dime. So he could go off the establishment reservation at a moment's notice which makes them apoplectic. Hence, their attempts to get him out of the way and install someone more pliant and predictable like Tom Pence.
polistra , May 16, 2017 at 11:56 am GMT@animalogic "A soft coup engineered by the national security and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to our democracy than anything Donald Trump can do."
Until further notice, that is absolutely correct.
It needs to be recalled - ad nauseam - that Russia-gate, or whatever rubbish its called, is a LIE. There is NO, repeat NO evidence of ANY wrong-doing by Trump re the Russians.
The MSM & various elements of the "establishment" should suicide NOW from pure SHAME.
Hobo , May 16, 2017 at 12:16 pm GMTConspiracies are NOT hard to sustain. That's an absurd statement. Deepstate has been sustaining and expanding its conspiracies for 100 years. (There is always a 'deep state' of some kind, but the current well-organized structure was created by Wilson.) A conspiracy AGAINST Deepstate is hard to sustain because Deepstate owns and monitors all public communications.
Chris Bridges , May 16, 2017 at 12:39 pm GMTWhile the collusion story is an obvious canard there is another level to this "Russian thing" which may prove to be extremely damaging to Trump. And that is Trump's participation in a money-laundering operation with the Russo-jewish mafia going back decades.
Some of the investigations have expanded their scope to include careful scrutiny of Trump's business dealings in relation to Russia. Recently FinCEN, which specializes in fighting money laundering, agreed to turn over records to the Senate Intelligence Committee in this regard. Even Sen. Linsey Graham recently stated he wanted to know more about Trump's business dealings with Russia. The possibility that this may result in a criminal investigation cannot be ruled out. The money-laundering angle is already all over the Web (ex. google: Bayrock Trump) and, one must assume, in the hands of various intelligence agencies. .This may be the basis for Trump's increasingly frantic attempts to shut down the "Russian thing" investigation.(Comey firing??)
Dutch Public Broadcasting has recently broadcast a two part series exploring some of the connections involving Trump's business dealings with Russia.
THE DUBIOUS FRIENDS OF DONALD TRUMP: THE RUSSIANS
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKLWloj2ohM (part 1)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LxtQ0CMzQQ (part 2)
More detail and background is provided in this informative article by James S. Henry, a reputable investigative journalist:
The Curious World of Donald Trump's Private Russian Connections
p.s.: Regarding the term Russo-jewish mafia, should you watch the videos and read the article you will find the players involved are almost exclusively of a certain 'tribal' persuasion. (A number have direct links to the infamous Mogilevich crime syndicate (top 10 FBI's most wanted list) and one of the principals of Bayrock was named as a major Israeli organized crime figure by the Turkish media following his arrest there.)
MEexpert , May 16, 2017 at 1:19 pm GMTPhil,
As you know, Brennan is an extreme liberal Democrat, a creature of both Clinton and Obama. He is an utterly unprincipled old fool. He failed as a CIA operations officer and went back to Langley with his tail between his legs to become analyst. Nothing wrong with that but he nursed bitter resentment at the Clandestine Service during his whole career. He was finally allowed to go out as chief in, of all places, Riyadh. He promptly destroyed the station with his incompetence, though he earned the praise of the ambassador, as such toadies usually do. Brennan is perfectly capable of the things you describe. Washington is awash in these kinds of traitors. If Trump does not have a plan to arrest them all some dark night then he is a fool himself.
utu , May 16, 2017 at 1:21 pm GMTAnd President Barack Obama was likely the initiator, notably so when he de facto authorized the wide distribution of raw intelligence on Trump and the Russians through executive order.
I repeat, why hasn't Trump issued an executive order cancelling Obama's executive order? He needs to stop this information sharing if he expects to remain President.
Phil, is there any one who has Trump's ear? The mainstream media are hell bent in destroying anyone close to Trump. First, Flynn, then Steve Bannon and now Kellyanne Conway. Trump must stop these leaks from the White House. He should fire all Obama holdovers.
Sam Shama , May 16, 2017 at 1:39 pm GMT@Hobo While the collusion story is an obvious canard there is another level to this "Russian thing" which may prove to be extremely damaging to Trump. And that is Trump's participation in a money-laundering operation with the Russo-jewish mafia going back decades.
... ... ... ...
p.s.: Regarding the term Russo-jewish mafia, should you watch the videos and read the article you will find the players involved are almost exclusively of a certain 'tribal' persuasion. (A number have direct links to the infamous Mogilevich crime syndicate (top 10 FBI's most wanted list) and one of the principals of Bayrock was named as a major Israeli organized crime figure by the Turkish media following his arrest there.)
RadicalCenter , May 16, 2017 at 2:07 pm GMTI recently produced my own analysis of the possibility that there is in progress a soft, or stealth or silent coup, call it what you will, underway directed against the president and that, if it exists, it is being directed by former senior officials from the Obama White House. Indeed, it is quite plausible to suggest that it was orchestrated within the Obama White House itself before the government changed hands at the inauguration on January 20th. In line with that thinking, some observers are now suggesting that Comey might well have been party to the conspiracy and his dismissal would have been perfectly justified based on his demonstrated interference in both the electoral process and in his broadening of the acceptable role of his own Bureau , which Trump has described as "showboating."
It's quite difficult to accept this line of thought when Comey practically scuppered Hillary's bid, something strongly endorsed by Obama. Going with this narrative requires Obama to have engineered Hillary's departure followed by a concerted plan to unseat Trump as well, both objectives utilizing Comey! To what end? Paint chaos on the American political canvas?
jilles dykstra , May 16, 2017 at 2:28 pm GMT@Colleen Pater This " theory " isnt a theory its not debatable and its clear both parties and every power node in the world are signalling they will do whatever they can to help. Its really a good thing they are not fooling anyone but some maroon prog snowflakes. Trump was the howard beale last option before civil war candidate, he won fair and square , actually despite massive cheating by the other side and now they are overthrowing him in full view of the american people.Its good as long as idiots on the right still believed in democracy, that getting their candidate in would change war was averted. after thirty years of steady leftism no matter who was in power they voted trump now trumps being overthrown. They will see we dont live in a democracy we live in the matrix democracy is diversionary tactic to prevent us from killing them all. And kill them all is what we must do.
anonymous , May 16, 2017 at 2:33 pm GMT@alexander Some fine points here, Mr, Dykstra,
I don't think, however, the notion of the "establishment" is a problem in itself. Our country has always had powerful elites, so have many other countries. The problem which presents itself today is our elites seem determined to perpetuate endless wars that cost obscene amounts of money, and do not seem to produce positive results in any of the places the wars are being fought.
The "establishment" does not seem to care. It is now wholly unthinkable for our "establishment" to consider "making peace"and ending our wars. There is an addiction to "war spending" and "war profiteering" which has consumed the Deep State Apparatus, especially since 9-11, and operates almost completely independently of any administration in office.
Its an insatiable appetite...that grows larger every year. Any President, elected by the people today,to end our wars will simply not be tolerated by the establishment class and the deep state it lords over. The problem is not that we have an "establishment", the problem is our establishment is addicted to war.
Only "war" will do for them, full time, all the time..... end of story. Today, any President is given two choices once in office....make WAR..... or be impeached.
Agent76 , May 16, 2017 at 2:33 pm GMT@Anon Trump Heads to Saudi Arabia - Target Iran and Iraq?
John Jeremiah Smith , May 16, 2017 at 2:33 pm GMTThe short answer is yes! March 31, 2017 The Surveillance State Behind Russia-Gate. Although many details are still hazy because of secrecy – and further befogged by politics – it appears House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes was informed last week about invasive electronic surveillance of senior U.S. government officials and, in turn, passed that information onto President Trump.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-surveillance-state-behind-russia-gate/5582211
Mar 9, 2017 BADA BING! NSA Whistleblower Confirms Trump Was Tapped!
They're wire tapping President Trump, and Kim Kardashian, and Hulk Hogan, and you and EVERYBODY!
John Jeremiah Smith , May 16, 2017 at 2:41 pm GMTIt is now wholly unthinkable for our "establishment" to consider "making peace"and ending our wars. There is an addiction to "war spending" and "war profiteering" which has consumed the Deep State Apparatus, especially since 9-11, and operates almost completely independently of any administration in office.
Precisely. Frankly, I suspect 90% of the daily brouhaha of conspiracies and collusion theories is a product solely of tawdry greed. The rich will do anything for money . anything.
Aaron Burr , May 16, 2017 at 2:55 pm GMTReopening the investigation in a dramatic public manner (I guess we do tell who is under investigation) and then coming back to announce, "We were correct the first time; there is no case" might convince a few thousand staggling doubters. It was very close.
Quite so. Comey's election-eve announcement was a calculated risk, with the intention of making the "investigation" of Clinton look legitimate and professional, not just lip service to troublesome legalities. It was intended to produce a public reaction like "Oh, they double-checked like good investigators, and sure enough, Hillary's email operation was completely legit."
Done clumsily, and it backfired.
John Jeremiah Smith , May 16, 2017 at 2:56 pm GMTAt what point does political infighting cross the line into treason?
There's a line somewhere between the two, obviously. Perhaps its when you break the law? Perhaps its when you leak classified documents? Or details of a key diplomatic meeting?
Sam Shama , May 16, 2017 at 2:56 pm GMT@utu There will be no open coup. Trump will resign for health reason or in the worst case scenario will be declared unfit for health reasons. And Pence will give a speech how great Trump was and how great his ideas were and that now he as president will continue his vision. And many people will believe it.
Philip Giraldi , May 16, 2017 at 3:33 pm GMT@iffen It's quite difficult to accept this line of thought when Comey practically scuppered Hillary's bid
There is reason to believe that Clinton's email troubles were having a major impact. Many were unconvinced by Comey's first pronouncement that there was no case there. (I thought this was the prosecutor's job anyway. People would have been skeptical of a compromised Lynch saying that there was no case, but might be persuaded by Comey.)
Reopening the investigation in a dramatic public manner (I guess we do tell who is under investigation) and then coming back to announce, "We were correct the first time; there is no case" might convince a few thousand staggling doubters. It was very close.
Joe Hide , May 16, 2017 at 3:42 pm GMT@Sam Shama I need to understand why Phil Giraldi thinks she was considered a flawed candidate from the Deep State's perspective .
In the minds of non-mainstream writers who constantly viewed her as the embodiment of the Establishment, one wouldn't have wagered "their" perfect candidate to be marked for removal.
iffen , May 16, 2017 at 3:59 pm GMTIt looks to me as though the "deep state" is getting progressive dementia. While inhabited by many high I.Q. players, their moves are increasingly insane. They had assumed their "Surveillance State" would become all intrusive, giving them ever greater control over us peasants. The reverse has happened, where most of the 7 billion of us have cell phones that record and display all their nefarious deeds. We have a million times more high I.Q. people than them, that increasingly are waking up and exposing those psychopaths for the pieces of garbage that they are.
John Jeremiah Smith , May 16, 2017 at 4:03 pm GMT@Sam Shama I need to understand why Phil Giraldi thinks she was considered a flawed candidate from the Deep State's perspective .
In the minds of non-mainstream writers who constantly viewed her as the embodiment of the Establishment, one wouldn't have wagered "their" perfect candidate to be marked for removal.
Boris M Garsky , May 16, 2017 at 5:03 pm GMTComey's election-eve announcement was a calculated risk, with the intention of making the "investigation" of Clinton look legitimate and professional, not just lip service to troublesome legalities.No. They knew then that election could not be stolen (for whatever reasons) for Clinton. The 28th October announcement by Comey was the signal to press to change the fake narrative of huge advantage in polls by Hillary and prepare the eventual excuse for Hillary why she lost.WorkingClass , May 16, 2017 at 5:52 pm GMTComey was abruptly and unceremoniously fired after he stated that Clinton had forwarded thousands of e-mails containing classified information on an unsecured server to wiener and friends. Hardly covering Clintons back. The FBI investigates -- it does not prosecute -- that is the function of the attorney generals office. The AG solely has the power to convene a grand jury, not the FBI. The deputy attorney general Rosenstein writes a scathing report and recommendation to fire Comey. Trump, probably on Kushner's urging fires Comey. Comey redacts his prior statement.
My guess is that the FBI were very close to the neocons hidden secret -- Clinton and its foundation are foreign assets and not of Russia, hence, we have the Russia-gate diversion. Unfortunately, Comey;s replacement will be toothless, merely a shelf ornament. And what happened? We hear no more of Kushners? omitting his relationship to the Rothchilds enterprises. Flynn was fired for far less. Is/ are Kushner? and/ or Rosenstein the leak(s)?
The people pushing the big lie about Trump and Russia are legion. And they are not stupid. They are evil. They are the same people who are preparing a preemptive nuclear attack against Russia and China. They are the globalists who would institute a universal Feudalism from which there would be no escape. I have no further use for Trump. But his enemies remain enemies of the people.
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May 08, 2017 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
May 8, 2017 by Yves Smith By Andrew J. Bacevich, a TomDispatch regular , is the author of America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History , now out in paperback . His next book will be an interpretive history of the United States from the end of the Cold War to the election of Donald Trump. Originally published at TomDispatchIf only it were so. How wonderful it would be if President Trump's ascendancy had coincided with a revival of hard-hitting, deep-dive, no-holds-barred American journalism. Alas, that's hardly the case. True, the big media outlets are demonstrating both energy and enterprise in exposing the ineptitude, inconsistency, and dubious ethical standards, as well as outright lies and fake news, that are already emerging as Trump era signatures. That said, pointing out that the president has (again) uttered a falsehood, claimed credit for a nonexistent achievement, or abandoned some position to which he had previously sworn fealty requires something less than the sleuthing talents of a Sherlock Holmes. As for beating up on poor Sean Spicer for his latest sequence of gaffes - well, that's more akin to sadism than reporting.
Apart from a commendable determination to discomfit Trump and members of his inner circle (select military figures excepted, at least for now), journalism remains pretty much what it was prior to November 8th of last year: personalities built up only to be torn down; fads and novelties discovered, celebrated, then mocked; "extraordinary" stories of ordinary people granted 15 seconds of fame only to once again be consigned to oblivion - all served with a side dish of that day's quota of suffering, devastation, and carnage. These remain journalism's stock-in-trade. As practiced in the United States, with certain honorable (and hence unprofitable) exceptions, journalism remains superficial, voyeuristic, and governed by the attention span of a two year old.
As a result, all those editors, reporters, columnists, and talking heads who characterize their labors as "now more important than ever" ill-serve the public they profess to inform and enlighten. Rather than clearing the air, they befog it further. If anything, the media's current obsession with Donald Trump - his every utterance or tweet treated as "breaking news!" - just provides one additional excuse for highlighting trivia, while slighting issues that deserve far more attention than they currently receive.
To illustrate the point, let me cite some examples of national security issues that presently receive short shrift or are ignored altogether by those parts of the Fourth Estate said to help set the nation's political agenda. To put it another way: Hey, Big Media, here are two dozen matters to which you're not giving faintly adequate thought and attention.
1. Accomplishing the "mission" : Since the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States has been committed to defending key allies in Europe and East Asia. Not long thereafter, U.S. security guarantees were extended to the Middle East as well. Under what circumstances can Americans expect nations in these regions to assume responsibility for managing their own affairs? To put it another way, when (if ever) might U.S. forces actually come home? And if it is incumbent upon the United States to police vast swaths of the planet in perpetuity, how should momentous changes in the international order - the rise of China, for example, or accelerating climate change - affect the U.S. approach to doing so?
2 . American military supremacy : The United States military is undoubtedly the world's finest. It's also far and away the most generously funded , with policymakers offering U.S. troops no shortage of opportunities to practice their craft. So why doesn't this great military ever win anything? Or put another way, why in recent decades have those forces been unable to accomplish Washington's stated wartime objectives? Why has the now 15-year-old war on terror failed to result in even a single real success anywhere in the Greater Middle East? Could it be that we've taken the wrong approach? What should we be doing differently?
3. America's empire of bases : The U.S. military today garrisons the planet in a fashion without historical precedent. Successive administrations, regardless of party, justify and perpetuate this policy by insisting that positioning U.S. forces in distant lands fosters peace, stability, and security. In the present century, however, perpetuating this practice has visibly had the opposite effect. In the eyes of many of those called upon to "host" American bases, the permanent presence of such forces smacks of occupation. They resist. Why should U.S. policymakers expect otherwise?
4. Supporting the troops : In present-day America, expressing reverence for those who serve in uniform is something akin to a religious obligation. Everyone professes to cherish America's "warriors." Yet such bountiful, if superficial, expressions of regard camouflage a growing gap between those who serve and those who applaud from the sidelines. Our present-day military system, based on the misnamed All-Volunteer Force, is neither democratic nor effective. Why has discussion and debate about its deficiencies not found a place among the nation's political priorities?
5. Prerogatives of the commander-in-chief : Are there any military actions that the president of the United States may not order on his own authority? If so, what are they? Bit by bit, decade by decade, Congress has abdicated its assigned role in authorizing war. Today, it merely rubberstamps what presidents decide to do (or simply stays mum ). Who does this deference to an imperial presidency benefit? Have U.S. policies thereby become more prudent, enlightened, and successful?
6. Assassin-in-chief : A policy of assassination, secretly implemented under the aegis of the CIA during the early Cold War, yielded few substantive successes. When the secrets were revealed, however, the U.S. government suffered considerable embarrassment , so much so that presidents foreswore politically motivated murder. After 9/11, however, Washington returned to the assassination business in a big way and on a global scale, using drones. Today, the only secret is the sequence of names on the current presidential hit list , euphemistically known as the White House "disposition matrix." But does assassination actually advance U.S. interests (or does it merely recruit replacements for the terrorists it liquidates)? How can we measure its costs, whether direct or indirect? What dangers and vulnerabilities does this practice invite?
7. The war formerly known as the "Global War on Terrorism" : What precisely is Washington's present strategy for defeating violent jihadism? What sequence of planned actions or steps is expected to yield success? If no such strategy exists, why is that the case? How is it that the absence of strategy - not to mention an agreed upon definition of "success" - doesn't even qualify for discussion here?
8. The campaign formerly known as Operation Enduring Freedom : The conflict commonly referred to as the Afghanistan War is now the longest in U.S. history - having lasted longer than the Civil War, World War I, and World War II combined. What is the Pentagon's plan for concluding that conflict? When might Americans expect it to end? On what terms?
9. The Gulf : Americans once believed that their prosperity and way of life depended on having assured access to Persian Gulf oil. Today, that is no longer the case. The United States is once more an oil exporter . Available and accessible reserves of oil and natural gas in North America are far greater than was once believed . Yet the assumption that the Persian Gulf still qualifies as crucial to American national security persists in Washington. Why?
10. Hyping terrorism : Each year terrorist attacks kill far fewer Americans than do auto accidents , drug overdoses , or even lightning strikes . Yet in the allocation of government resources, preventing terrorist attacks takes precedence over preventing all three of the others combined. Why is that?
11. Deaths that matter and deaths that don't : Why do terrorist attacks that kill a handful of Europeans command infinitely more American attention than do terrorist attacks that kill far larger numbers of Arabs? A terrorist attack that kills citizens of France or Belgium elicits from the United States heartfelt expressions of sympathy and solidarity. A terrorist attack that kills Egyptians or Iraqis elicits shrugs. Why the difference? To what extent does race provide the answer to that question?
12. Israeli nukes : What purpose is served by indulging the pretense that Israel does not have nuclear weapons?
13. Peace in the Holy Land : What purpose is served by indulging illusions that a "two-state solution" offers a plausible resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? As remorselessly as white settlers once encroached upon territory inhabited by Native American tribes, Israeli settlers expand their presence in the occupied territories year by year. As they do, the likelihood of creating a viable Palestinian state becomes ever more improbable. To pretend otherwise is the equivalent of thinking that one day President Trump might prefer the rusticity of Camp David to the glitz of Mar-a-Lago.
14. Merchandizing death : When it comes to arms sales, there is no need to Make America Great Again. The U.S. ranks number one by a comfortable margin, with long-time allies Saudi Arabia and Israel leading recipients of those arms. Each year, the Saudis (per capita gross domestic product $20,000) purchase hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. weapons. Israel (per capita gross domestic product $38,000) gets several billion dollars worth of such weaponry annually courtesy of the American taxpayer. If the Saudis pay for U.S. arms, why shouldn't the Israelis? They can certainly afford to do so.
15. Our friends the Saudis (I) : Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001, were Saudis. What does that fact signify?
16. Our friends the Saudis (II) : If indeed Saudi Arabia and Iran are competing to determine which nation will enjoy the upper hand in the Persian Gulf, why should the United States favor Saudi Arabia? In what sense do Saudi values align more closely with American values than do Iranian ones?
17. Our friends the Pakistanis : Pakistan behaves like a rogue state. It is a nuclear weapons proliferator . It supports the Taliban. For years, it provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden. Yet U.S. policymakers treat Pakistan as if it were an ally. Why? In what ways do U.S. and Pakistani interests or values coincide? If there are none, why not say so?
18. Free-loading Europeans : Why can't Europe, " whole and free ," its population and economy considerably larger than Russia's, defend itself? It's altogether commendable that U.S. policymakers should express support for Polish independence and root for the Baltic republics. But how does it make sense for the United States to care more about the wellbeing of people living in Eastern Europe than do people living in Western Europe?
19. The mother of all "special relationships" : The United States and the United Kingdom have a "special relationship" dating from the days of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Apart from keeping the Public Broadcasting Service supplied with costume dramas and stories featuring eccentric detectives, what is the rationale for that partnership today? Why should U.S. relations with Great Britain, a fading power, be any more "special" than its relations with a rising power like India? Why should the bonds connecting Americans and Britons be any more intimate than those connecting Americans and Mexicans? Why does a republic now approaching the 241st anniversary of its independence still need a "mother country"?
20. The old nuclear disarmament razzmatazz : American presidents routinely cite their hope for the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons. Yet the U.S. maintains nuclear strike forces on full alert, has embarked on a costly and comprehensive trillion-dollar modernization of its nuclear arsenal, and even refuses to adopt a no-first-use posture when it comes to nuclear war. The truth is that the United States will consider surrendering its nukes only after every other nation on the planet has done so first. How does American nuclear hypocrisy affect the prospects for global nuclear disarmament or even simply for the non-proliferation of such weaponry?
21. Double standards (I) : American policymakers take it for granted that their country's sphere of influence is global, which, in turn, provides the rationale for the deployment of U.S. military forces to scores of countries. Yet when it comes to nations like China, Russia, or Iran, Washington takes the position that spheres of influence are obsolete and a concept that should no longer be applicable to the practice of statecraft. So Chinese, Russian, and Iranian forces should remain where they belong - in China, Russia, and Iran. To stray beyond that constitutes a provocation, as well as a threat to global peace and order. Why should these other nations play by American rules? Why shouldn't similar rules apply to the United States?
22. Double standards (II) : Washington claims that it supports and upholds international law. Yet when international law gets in the way of what American policymakers want to do, they disregard it. They start wars, violate the sovereignty of other nations, and authorize agents of the United States to kidnap, imprison, torture, and kill. They do these things with impunity, only forced to reverse their actions on the rare occasions when U.S. courts find them illegal. Why should other powers treat international norms as sacrosanct since the United States does so only when convenient?
23. Double standards (III) : The United States condemns the indiscriminate killing of civilians in wartime. Yet over the last three-quarters of a century, it killed civilians regularly and often on a massive scale. By what logic, since the 1940s, has the killing of Germans, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, Afghans, and others by U.S. air power been any less reprehensible than the Syrian government's use of "barrel bombs" to kill Syrians today? On what basis should Americans accept Pentagon claims that, when civilians are killed these days by U.S. forces, the acts are invariably accidental, whereas Syrian forces kill civilians intentionally and out of malice? Why exclude incompetence or the fog of war as explanations? And why, for instance, does the United States regularly gloss over or ignore altogether the noncombatants that Saudi forces (with U.S. assistance ) are routinely killing in Yemen?
24. Moral obligations : When confronted with some egregious violation of human rights, members of the chattering classes frequently express an urge for the United States to "do something." Holocaust analogies sprout like dandelions. Newspaper columnists recycle copy first used when Cambodians were slaughtering other Cambodians en masse or whenever Hutus and Tutsis went at it. Proponents of action - typically advocating military intervention - argue that the United States has a moral obligation to aid those victimized by injustice or cruelty anywhere on Earth. But what determines the pecking order of such moral obligations? Which comes first, a responsibility to redress the crimes of others or a responsibility to redress crimes committed by Americans? Who has a greater claim to U.S. assistance, Syrians suffering today under the boot of Bashar al-Assad or Iraqis, their country shattered by the U.S. invasion of 2003? Where do the Vietnamese fit into the queue? How about the Filipinos, brutally denied independence and forcibly incorporated into an American empire as the nineteenth century ended? Or African-Americans, whose ancestors were imported as slaves? Or, for that matter, dispossessed and disinherited Native Americans? Is there a statute of limitations that applies to moral obligations? And if not, shouldn't those who have waited longest for justice or reparations receive priority attention?
Let me suggest that any one of these two dozen issues - none seriously covered, discussed, or debated in the American media or in the political mainstream - bears more directly on the wellbeing of the United States and our prospects for avoiding global conflict than anything Donald Trump may have said or done during his first 100 days as president. Collectively, they define the core of the national security challenges that presently confront this country, even as they languish on the periphery of American politics.
How much damage Donald Trump's presidency wreaks before it ends remains to be seen. Yet he himself is a transient phenomenon. To allow his pratfalls and shenanigans to divert attention from matters sure to persist when he finally departs the stage is to make a grievous error. It may well be that, as the Times insists, the truth is now more important than ever. If so, finding the truth requires looking in the right places and asking the right questions.
DH , May 8, 2017 at 11:36 amB.J.M. , May 8, 2017 at 2:58 pmKahneman's "Thinking Fast and Slow" has many of the answers to the questions about why the MSM is the way it is. People are hard-wired to react to sound bites, especially potential pleasure or terror. The MSM is very good at that. Populist politicians feed off of the same.
witters , May 8, 2017 at 6:01 pm"What would be far more useful than a specialised list of inadequately reported topics would be to analyze this MSM behaviour, explore how it comes about and how it has evolved, to reveal some of the darker connections to power, and put up some strategies for slowly reversing it."
Sorry MoiAussie, but the analysis has already been done, unfortunately nobody really cares.
Propaganda and the Public Mind
Necessary Illusionscat's paw , May 8, 2017 at 1:57 am"What would be far more useful than a specialised list of inadequately reported topics would be to analyze this MSM behaviour, explore how it comes about and how it has evolved, to reveal some of the darker connections to power, and put up some strategies for slowly reversing it. In a nutshell, how to foster thriving independent media with broad reach that expose MSM stenography and resist censorship?"
Well, yes. Except the behaviour you are analysing is, presumably, among other things, the behaviour involved in inadequately addressing these topics.
oho , May 8, 2017 at 8:45 amOne can sleep soundly tonight safe in the knowledge that not even the pretense of a reply to Bacevich's questions will be forthcoming.
Norb , May 8, 2017 at 9:18 amstop fighting about identity politics (i'm not holding my breath for either side)
elements of both sides want to return to a non-interventionist US foreign policy, except there is always a fight about something else that serves as a distraction.. like cats and shiny toys.
B.J.M. , May 8, 2017 at 2:47 pmThe only thing one can do is persistently bring important issues forward to friends and colleagues. In other words, become in many respects a social pariah. Challenging the status quo by definition makes you an outsider.
The strategic effectiveness of this dissent becomes manifest when you actually change how you live your life. You become an example for others to follow.
Any successful movement building must follow this path. The strategic plan is to live and think like a socialist in a crumbling capitalist world. The rising levels of inequality must surely bring this about, one way or another.
Socialism or Barbarism. How many working people could disagree with that? It needs to be repeated over and over. That spirit needs to be reflected in individual life in order to survive.
optimader , May 8, 2017 at 11:18 am" But it raises the question, what can individuals do to change the behavior of the media?"
We can continue to ignore them and opt for the following: Naked Capitalism, CounterPunch, ZeroHedge, Liberty Blitzkreig, ContraCorner, Truthout, Consortium News, The Unz Review, Tom Dispatch, Democracy Now, Pando Daily, The Intercept, etc, etc. That is the mainstream media's worst nightmare.
The only reason to check the NYT or Washington Post is to see what meme is being promoted by the deep state; then you know what not to believe.
I find this whole debate about fake news to be somewhat laughable. Americans have been subject to fake news for decades, they just didn't know it. Noam Chomsky has been writing about this for 40 years. His books: Propaganda and the Public Mind, Deterring Democracy, Manufacturing Consent and Necessary Illusions are all excellent and contain extensive research and details to support his claims. Of course part to the fake news strategy has been to ignore people like Chomsky. Instead we get intellectual clowns like Tom Friedman telling us how the world works.
Now that we have some real news, the fake news mainstream media has gone into panic mode and its strategy is to label the real new as fake news. Orwell and Huxley must be rolling in their graves with laughter.
Enjoy the show!
craazyboy , May 8, 2017 at 2:05 amTrue, the big media outlets are demonstrating both energy and enterprise in exposing the ineptitude, inconsistency, and dubious ethical standards, as well as outright lies and fake news, that are already emerging as Trump era signatures. That said, pointing out that the president has (again) uttered a falsehood, claimed credit for a nonexistent achievement, or abandoned some position to which he had previously sworn . "uttered a falsehood, claimed credit for a nonexistent achievement, or abandoned some position.." a new development in POTUS behavior ushered in by DTrump??
fresno dan , May 8, 2017 at 11:12 amOk, so the USG has 24 issues. Let's not be nit-picky.
On this one, we've had a bit of progress.
"8. The campaign formerly known as Operation Enduring Freedom: The conflict commonly referred to as the Afghanistan War is now the longest in U.S. history - having lasted longer than the Civil War, World War I, and World War II combined. What is the Pentagon's plan for concluding that conflict? When might Americans expect it to end? On what terms?"
We dropped a $30 million BMF'ing bomb on an undefensible, open plain. Killed 67 trees and terrified Afgan flora from border to border. Egyptian cotton kids refuse to migrate there on their little parachute thingies because they are terrified --
Declassified CIA leaks from the DNC indicate these trees actively made maple syrup for terrorists. This gives terrorists big muscles, like Popeye, and reduces urges to eat human organs.
This is appreciated by other terrorists in camp and they sleep better , too.
However, the Fava Beans and Olive Oil have been spilled. Unemployed tree hugger reporters report that the BMF'ing bomb caused the tree sap to instantly turn to maple sugar candies and the candies are now enclosed in a depleted uranium candy tins. Fake research scientists believe the bomb casing was made of the depleted uranium. Could happen, opines Krugman, now minority owner of the NYT, and seconded by Chelsea, whom did the secret HS science project back in the 90s in Yugoslavia. She drew a cute picture of Daddy on the bomb's belly, but a lot of Very Serious Men In Black Suits did everything else.
As to when the entire Afgan issue ends, we know the war becomes fiscally irresponsible when the USG runs out of new trees to bomb and the maple sugar candies no longer can fund the onslaught.
Krugman is working on the macro analysis and will send the Noble Prize people an advanced copy for editing, puffing up, and general focus grouping. One area of neglect is developing a universal political correctness language – the semantics are daunting and definitions have to be dynamic, yet synchronized with meanings according to domestic needs. That's a tough one.
Then people have to learn it, instead of lazily doing what they do now. Which I think may involve much use of sign language.
An advance against the reward money is expected, and a pic of the statues with Kruggies name on it would signal good faith and seal the deal. Bully to Trump!
optimader , May 8, 2017 at 11:22 amcraazyboy
May 8, 2017 at 2:05 am"The conflict commonly referred to as the Afghanistan War is now the longest in U.S. history - having lasted longer than the Civil War, World War I, and World War II combined. What is the Pentagon's plan for concluding that conflict? When might Americans expect it to end?"
Apparently, the Afghanistan war has ended. It makes me feel a little less stupid, although I have a lot of excess stupid in reserve, to know others missed it as well ..
fresno dan
After dropping its largest conventional bomb ever used in combat in Afghanistan on 13 April, the US military said the massive ordnance air blast, or Moab, was a "very clear message to Isis" that they would be "annihilated".
Defence secretary Jim Mattis said the bomb was "necessary to break Isis". The Afghan government claimed the bomb killed 94 Isis militants, while harming no civilians.
======================================================================= http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2014/12/29/afghanistan-war-officially-ends/21004589/
Well, looks like I missed the war ending .but with the war ended, one would think we wouldn't have to be dropping the world's biggest bomb
fresno dan , May 8, 2017 at 2:26 pmits now a police action!
optimader , May 8, 2017 at 4:43 pmoptimader
May 8, 2017 at 11:22 amthe military takes more and more "police actions" while the police use more and more military equipment and tactics ..
Considering all the "surplus" stuff that goes to the police, how soon before the police drop the biggest "anti-criminal suppression device" i.e., the mother of all bombs???DH , May 8, 2017 at 2:29 pmhow soon before the police drop the biggest "anti-criminal suppression device" i.e., the mother of all bombs???
low yield Neutron bomb.. don't damage what left of the domestic infrastructure, the REIT managers would go crazy!
The backhanded criticism that the MFing bomb didn't do enough damage is related to where it was used.
Try a barometric pressure bomb in a place like Manhattan and it would be a much different outcome than say on the other end of the spectrum, at a latitude/longitude in Nevada where the before and after pics would be identical.A dark side of the media criticism of the MFing Bomb is that it may well goad the MIC/Pentagon Product Managers into a do-over. Afterall, who likes their handiwork criticized?
DTrump told them I want something big and flashy while Xi is in town and that's what they came up with..
Back to the Product Development Group. Just need to tweak the neutron emission!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)DH , May 8, 2017 at 2:38 pmThey are just suppressing protests. In the US they are limited to tear gas but in Afghanistan they can use MOAB since the ACLU is weak there.
optimader , May 8, 2017 at 12:09 pm"The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea." Mao Zedong
The cool thing about guerilla warfare is it largely eliminates the concept of civilians since anybody could be a soldier, even children. That is why civilian casualties are frequently so low, because pretty much anybody over the age of 6 is a combatant. it also increases the enemy combatant body count which makes it clear that the government forces are winning, as was so ably shown in the Vietnam War.
DH , May 8, 2017 at 2:32 pmI'm thinking the bigMFing bomb was more a marketing theater driven initative rather than Afgan Strategic Theatre driven.
It was so DTrump could be at the breakfast table before the President of China and to greet him with.. Wow, sorry I had to cut out before Dessert last night, had some things to take care of, how was the Chocolate cake.. the Cake?" ( he like to repeat things)
Dick Burkhart , May 8, 2017 at 2:21 amI view the use of MOAB on ISIS as the equivalent of giving an antibiotic shot so that the in-country Taliban immune system can wipe out the remaining ISIS bacteria. I don't think the Taliban wants ISIS there since it focuses too much US attention on the area, so they may be willing to mop up the remaining ISIS fighters.
DanB , May 8, 2017 at 7:49 amSome great questions here. Recently I was at a Town Hall with my representative to Congress and asked him if our government, or even just the Democrats, had a long term strategy for peace in the Middle East. The answer was basically, No. A few weeks later I actually got a phone call from his office on this very question, yet the answer was still basically No. He did say that Kerry had sought a UN brokered regime change in Syria (opposed by Russia), after I suggested something like this.
However Bacevitch needs to be a little more critical about all the claims about US energy. The US may be exporting some oil and oil products, but it is importing more. We have no prospect of "energy independence" in the forseeable future, unless there is a drastic cutback in consumption. When it comes to energy forecasting, top governmental agencies have had an abysmal record. Independent experts like David Hughes and Art Berman regularly expose the wishful thinking and poor analysis of the economists at these agencies.
Toolate , May 8, 2017 at 2:24 am"Independent experts like David Hughes and Art Berman regularly expose the wishful thinking and poor analysis of the economists at these agencies." Thanks for pointing this out.
Temporarily Sane , May 8, 2017 at 2:42 amThis truly is an appalling list. One wonders how many Americans have ever considered even one of these ?
John Wright , May 8, 2017 at 10:55 amIt's great to see people from across the ideological spectrum who served in the military, intelligence services and in various administrations, speaking out. Hindsight is 20/20as the cliche goes. Now if only people who are currently serving in those institutions would step up to the plate and speak truth to power. At what point does it become unconscionable for good people to do nothing? Or, rather, when does critical mass kick in and make resisting the insanity that reigns in our institutions more than just a flash in the pan and career suicide?
Mel , May 8, 2017 at 8:46 amThe past is not encouraging, war hero Eisenhower could only warn of the MIC as he was exiting.
The economic footprint of the MIC + think tanks + academia + security agencies is huge (maybe a trillion/year)
A lot of people depend on the defense budget staying large as the MIC is a jobs program throughout much of the USA,.
I remember CA Senator Boxer, one of the few senators who voted against the AUMF in Iraq, fighting to keep the local (to me) Mare Island Naval Shipyard from closing in 1996.
The adjacent city, Vallejo, subsequently went through bankruptcy.
One illustrative MIC family is the Kagan-Nuland family,
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton's Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs and seemed to be in charge of stirring up trouble in the Ukraine.
Her husband is noted neocon (he prefers "liberal interventionist") Robert Kagan of the Bookings Institution, and his brother, Frederick, is at the American Enterprise institute.
Frederick's wife, Kimberly, heads up the "Institute for the Study of War" funded by Raytheon, General Dynamics, DynCorp and others.
One might suggest this family gets meaning, purpose and income through USA military action.
One could posit there many other similar families.
It is difficult to be optimistic that much can be done.
oho , May 8, 2017 at 8:50 amThese aren't independent issues (and, ultimately, there's no reason they have to be.)
Like, what's preventing the solution of #1 (expecting nations in these regions to assume responsibility for managing their own affairs?) #17. When the Pakistanis have to deal with huge problems on the other side of the invisible line, they aren't so reliable about sticking to the script. Especially a script that has written out all the huge problems.I guess that is the point. 45 seconds with this list pastes two items together and makes the framework for a story. But the run of stories that appear are like Captain America saw a bad guy and punched him in the face. Makes a good comic panel, and, when the press has been taught the true meaning of "profitable", it makes a good newspaper page too. Right.
A working State Department could do interesting things with this list too, but - Captain America.
DH , May 8, 2017 at 11:46 amthe US hasn't fought a peer nation since 1945-even then the USSR did a lot of the heavy lifting. the US still hasnt beaten the Taliban.
US full spectrum dominance could be propaganda for all we know--with our vaunted carriers and fighters sitting ducks to swarms of cheap first-world missiles.
in any fight with China or Russia, theyd only have to play defense. The US would be the ones without home field advantage, likely in a war with limited domestic support as the fight probablyt would not be about an existential issue to the US homeland
hemeantwell , May 8, 2017 at 8:55 amIf a group like the Taliban has indigenous support, then you pretty much are left with destroying the village in order to save it as the only military option. Putting a corrupt mafia in charge of the country is not the appropriate alternate civilian political approach to win hearts and minds.
In the 1990s nobody cared about the Taliban except when they were blowing up big Buddhas. Their fatal error was allowing bin-Laden to launch major attacks against the US home soil. My guess at this time is that the Taliban have been inoculated against spreading terror overseas. If the US left Afghanistan, the Taliban would probably take many of the valleys back and kick ISIS out so that they don't have to worry about the US coming back in to deal with 9/11 terrorists again. Afghanistan would probably be fairly "peaceful" at that point in a fundamental Muslim way, kind of like the fundamental Christian utopia that Mike Pence tried to create in Indiana.
Whine Country , May 8, 2017 at 10:16 amBacevich's indictment suffers from an inability to explain how this genuflecting celebration of American intentions degenerated into what he goes on to elaborate.
Accomplishing the "mission": Since the immediate aftermath of World War II, the United States has been committed to defending key allies in Europe and East Asia. Not long thereafter, U.S. security guarantees were extended to the Middle East as well.
The beginning of the Cold War continues to be shrouded in assumptions about Soviet aggressiveness and American and British benevolence. Otherwise critical thinkers become kool aid dispensers when they are obliged to reference it. Bacevich skates over questions such as the division of Germany - was it because the US wanted to allow Germany to quickly reindustrialize and the Soviets were afraid of yet another invasion? - and whether city-destroying nuclear weapons would be internationally controlled or remain a US monopoly.
Instead he invites us all to assume the Soviets were acting and the West was reacting. In my view this genuinely childish view of international relations is the template for American exceptionalism and, unless we break free of it, a logic of privileged exceptionalism will continually assert itself. The Trump era offers us a chance to raze this mythology and seriously confront how market-oriented imperatives, not devils and angels, drive international conflict.
JEHR , May 8, 2017 at 9:10 amYou must have missed this yesterday:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/05/war-and-empire-the-american-way-of-life/
Some are trying to deal with the issue you raise. Oliver Stone had a lot to say on the subject in his "Untold History of the United States".
DH , May 8, 2017 at 11:48 amI would like to see CNN or any other channel begin a series of TV presentations where each one of these items is discussed by the relevant people. (When no officials show up for the program, then the producers will know they are on the right track.) A great idea for a series of investigative reports by journalists also.
However, would such a program make any difference in how things are done?
Lil'D , May 8, 2017 at 9:24 amIt might if the Kardashians were invited to participate in the debate.
B.J.M. , May 8, 2017 at 3:03 pmIt's systemic. Journalism is a business of delivering eyeballs to advertisers. These important issues don't sell. Get more flashy drama in the framing of the story and you might have a chance
Felix_47 , May 8, 2017 at 11:29 amexactly, it is "systemic"! Until one understands that the mainstream media's core business is not news; it is selling audiences to advertisers, one will never properly understand the problem.
Art Eclectic , May 8, 2017 at 1:41 pmCould it be that our leadership in Washington has no idea why we are still in Afghanistan either? Could it be that our allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, like the idea of the US military sitting at the back door to Iran? Could it be that we are getting the best foreign policy Saudi and Israeli money can buy? And the MIC is glad to oblige.
JTMcPhee , May 8, 2017 at 3:34 pmMy assumption is that everything inexplicable is ultimately explained by money if you dug deep enough.
witters , May 8, 2017 at 6:42 pmString theory? Dark matter? Why my dog still pees right inside the patio door?
Susan the other , May 8, 2017 at 12:05 pmWhy not? See Richard Rorty's "Consequences of Pragmatism".
Tom Stone , May 8, 2017 at 12:07 pmWell we can certainly speculate on 1 – 24. In almost every case there is an implied answer: We aren't quite finished yet establishing and maintaining our control. Over finance and power.
And even though war is too expensive and we have resorted to a kind of high-tech guerrilla warfare, we still need boots on the ground. That is because we live in a material world and goods are manufactured, transported and trafficked.
An even more stubborn war is going on in international finance (Hudson) – that's the one I'd like to see reporters understand. Colonel Wilkerson said it is all about finance and power and we will be in Afghanistan for 50 years. What's going on right now really seems like never ending pointlessness. So maybe we should discuss exactly what we want to achieve control for – what's the plan? In detail. Starting with the health of the planet and sustainable civilization.
templar555510 , May 8, 2017 at 2:35 pmY U H8 'Murika?
Sluggeaux , May 8, 2017 at 4:23 pmAndrew could have headed his piece " Analysis of an Empire ' and then added the sub-heading ' A Tale of Vested Interests ' because that is surely why these atrocities ( yes that's right ) continue ad infintum, ad nauseum . And these same interests are those that sell us soap, automobiles, liquor etc, etc, maybe not directly, but the interconnections are now so complete as to make distinctions irrelevant.
Gen Dau , May 8, 2017 at 7:55 pmIs it because a self-perpetuating top-heavy military bureaucracy was never properly demobilized after the Second World War, and only promotes the sort of sociopathic, narcissistic, borderline personalities who are relentlessly able to bully the groveling toadies and wussies who make up our perpetually campaigning political-climber class?
Westley Wood , May 8, 2017 at 8:12 pmAndrew Bacevich needs to study more deeply about Syrian history and politics, since his description of Syrian president Bashar Assad as a brutal dictator fits as a description of Bashar's father Hafez Assad but is inaccurate in relation to Bashar Assad, who seems to have a rather gentle personality and is actually one of the more benign leaders in the Middle East.
Bashar Assad had planned to be a doctor, and he studied medicine for two years in the UK before being ordered to return to Syria by his father after his elder brother died in an accident. Although there were some excesses by the police in 2011, Bashar Assad quickly relaxed some old security laws and pushed for a new democratic constitution, which was promulgated in 2012. Under that new constitution, in 2014 he ran in a free election observed by international observers against two other politicians and was reelected president. He has promised that if he loses the next election he will step down.
Nevertheless Assad has been systematically demonized by the governments and MSM of the US, UK, and France, as well as by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Demonization is a technique that is often used to prepare the way for regime change, and it is not based on objective analysis. Although Assad is often called a butcher who gasses his own people, experts such as Theodore Postol of MIT and others have shown that not a single allegation of gassing by the Syrian government under Assad has ever been proven. In addition, many of the excesses by the Syrian police against demonstrators in 2011 seem to have been initiated by armed members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in Syria, who quickly infiltrated the demonstrations.
There have even been allegations that jihadi sharpshooters on rooftops shot demonstrators in false-flag attacks.
Similar tactics were used in Ukraine in February 2014 by ultranationalist Right Sector sharpshooters, who were seen shooting Maidan demonstrators. The deaths of the demonstrators were then blamed on the police. In the case of Syria:
"Syrian-based Father Frans van der Lugt was the Dutch priest murdered by a gunman in Homs . His involvement in reconciliation and peace activities never stopped him from lobbing criticisms at both sides in this conflict. But in the first year of the crisis, he penned some remarkable observations about the violence – this one in January 2012:
"'From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.'
"In September 2011 he wrote: 'From the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition The opposition of the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government.'"
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/157412-syria-hidden-massacre-2011/
For an objective overview of the context of the events of 2011 in Syria that led to the international war against the elected Syrian government, see Stephen Gowans, "The Revolutionary Distemper in Syria That Wasn't."
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2016/10/22/the-revolutionary-distemper-in-syria-that-wasnt/
Also see Gowans' well-researched 2016 book 'Washington's Long War on Syria.' The US has been demonizing and trying to overthrow the Syrian government for several decades now, above all because it is the only remaining semi-socialist nation in the Middle East and has single-payer national health insurance, support for the elderly, and free college education for all. Assad is no saint, but he is one of the more democratic and forward-looking leaders in the Middle East today.
Thugs committing heinous acts "and some had opportunity to squeal " S. Crane
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May 21, 2017 | www.unz.com
One of Steve Sailer's many clever commenters has brilliantly named it WhateverGate-the frantic legalistic churning about who said what to whom in President Trump's circle, and whether the thing that was or was not said warrants impeachment. Or whatever. But impeachment.
Every week, I think things can't get any crazier-the hysteria has to burn itself out, the temperature can't get any higher, the fever has to break-and every week it's worse. Boy, they really want to get this guy. That just gives us more reasons to defend him.
I don't even bother much any more to focus on the actual thing that President Trump or one of his colleagues is supposed to have said or done. Every time, when you look closely, it's basically nothing.
I've been reading news and memoirs about American presidents since the Kennedy administration. I swear that every single damn thing Trump is accused of, warranting special counsels, congressional enquiries, impeachment-every single thing has been done by other recent presidents, often to a much greater degree, with little or no comment.
Remember Barack Obama's hot-mike blooper in the 2012 campaign, telling the Russian President that, quote, "After my election I have more flexibility"? [ Obama tells Russia's Medvedev more flexibility after election , Reuters, March 26, 2012] Can you imagine how today's media would react if footage showed up of Trump doing that in last year's campaign? Can you imagine ? I can't.
We are a big, important country with big, important things that need doing-most important of all, halting the demographic transformation that's tugging us out of the Anglosphere into the Latino-sphere and filling our country with low-skill workers just as robots are arriving to take their jobs.
Those big, important things aren't getting done. Instead, our news outlets are shrieking about high crimes and misdemeanors in the new administration–things that, when you read about the actual details, look awful picayune.
Sample, from today's press, concerning Michael Flynn , the national security advisor President Trump fired for supposedly lying to the Vice President about a phone conversation he'd had with the Russian Ambassador last December. To the best of my understanding, the root issue was just a difference of opinion over the parsing of what Flynn remembered having said, and the precise definition of the word "substantive," but Trump fired him anyway.
Well, here's Eli Lake at Bloomberg News on the latest tranche of investigations into Flynn's activities:
Flynn's legal troubles come from his failure to properly report foreign income. One source close to Flynn told me that the Justice Department had opened an investigation into Flynn after the election in November for failing to register his work on behalf of a Turkish businessman, pursuant to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Flynn had instead reported this income through the more lax Lobbying Disclosure Act. After his resignation, Flynn registered as a foreign agent for Turkey.
The Special Counsel Who Just Might Save Trump's Presidency, by Eli Lake, May 18, 2017
Did you get that? Instead of registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Flynn reported his income through the Lobbying Disclosure Act!
High crimes! Treason! Special Prosecutor! Congressional inquiry! The Republic is in danger! Suspend habeas corpus -- This must not stand!
And then, the whole silly Russia business. The Bloomberg guy has words about that, too:
Flynn also failed to report with the Pentagon his payment in 2015 from Russia's propaganda network, RT, for a speech in Moscow at the network's annual gala. As I reported last month, Flynn did brief the Defense Intelligence Agency about that trip before and after he attended the RT gala. The Pentagon also renewed his top-secret security clearance after that trip.
So obviously the rot goes deep into the Pentagon. They're covering for him! Let's have a purge of the military! Special prosecutor!
Oh, we have a special prosecutor? Let's have another one!
Russia, Russia, Russia. For crying out loud , Russia's just a country . We have no great differences of interest with them . What, are they trying to reclaim Alaska? First I've heard of it.
You could make an argument, I suppose-I don't myself think it's much of an argument, but you could make it-that Russia's a military threat to Europe.
Once again , with feeling: Europe has a population three and a half times greater than Russia's and a GDP ten times greater. Europe's two nuclear powers, Britain and France, have more than five hundred nuclear weapons between them. If the Euros can't defend themselves against Russia, there's something very badly wrong over there, beyond any ability of ours to fix–even if you could show me it's in our national interest to fix it, which you can't.
At this point, in fact, reading the news from Europe, I think a Russian invasion and occupation of the continent would be an improvement. A Russian hegemony might at least put up some resistance to the ongoing invasion of Europe from Africa and the Middle East . It doesn't look as though the Euros themselves are up to the job.
That aside, American citizens are free to visit Russia and talk to Russians, including Russian government employees, just as free as we are to talk to Australians, Brazilians, or Cambodians. As the Lion said on his blog :
Do liberals who are making a big deal about the Trump-Russia thing really believe that no one involved in a presidential campaign should have ever talked to anyone from another country? How would an administration ever conduct any foreign policy if no one in the administration has ever left the United States or ever talked to a foreigner?
And again, these standards have never been applied to other Presidents. Bill Clinton took campaign donations from the Chinese army . [ Chinagate and the Clintons, By Robert Zapesochny, American Spectator, October 6, 2016] Barack Obama groveled to the Saudis . Where were the calls for special prosecutors?
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, with whom Flynn had that December phone conversation, is, says the New York Post , "a suspected Kremlin spy." [ Michael Flynn won't honor subpoena to provide documents, By Bob Fredericks, May 18, 2017] Is he? Why should I care?
I bet ol' Sergey does all the spying he can. So, I'm sure, do the ambassadors of China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Botswana. That's what ambassadors do. That's what we do in their countries. Does anyone not know this?
"A Kremlin spy"? What is this, 1957 ? Russia's just a country . And as our own James Kirkpatrick has pointed out here at VDARE.com , it's a country run by people who hate us-the American people- less than our own elites do.
As James also points out, if it's interference in our elections that bothers you, consider what Mexico's been doing for the last forty years: encouraging mass immigration of its own underclass into the U.S.A., lobbying through its consulates and Spanish-language TV channels for voter registration, using Mexican-owned outlets like the New York Times to demonize and discredit national conservatives.
The founder of Christianity scoffed at those who strain at a gnat but swallow a camel. In the matter of foreign interference in our elections, the gnat here is Russia; the camel is Mexico. Our media and opinion elites have swallowed the camel.
Unless, of course, just down the road a few months, there's going to be a hysteria-storm about Mexican interference in our elections. My advice would be: Don't hold your breath.
All the shouting and swooning is just the rage of a dispossessed class-our political class.
Our political and government class, I think I should say. There are tens of thousands of federal functionaries who have never stood for election to anything, but whose loyalty is to the political Establishment. Great numbers of these people settled in to their comfortable seats during the eight years of Barack Obama's administration; so to the degree that they care about party affiliation, they prefer the Democratic Party. Washington, D.C. voted 91 percent for Mrs. Clinton last November.
Obama Holdovers, Vacant Posts Still Plague Trump - Administration housecleaning is long overdue to get agenda in motion, end damaging leaks, by Thomas Richard, LifeZette.com, May 18, 2017] Draining the swamp means getting rid of those people. They should be fired -en masse, in their hundreds and thousands, and marched out the office door by security guards before they can trash files.
Still, a big majority of federal politicians are helping to drive the hysteria; and their rage against Trump is, as they say in D.C., bipartisan. Senator John McCain told CNN on Tuesday that President Trump's troubles are, quote , "of Watergate size and scale."
There's a grain of truth in that. The Watergate affair was a media witch-hunt against a president the Establishment elites disliked. Nixon's offenses were of a kind the Main Stream Media had never bothered about, nor even reported, when done by Democrat presidents-like Lyndon Johnson's bugging of Barry Goldwater in 1964.
So yes: When the political and media establishment try to drive from office a president they dislike, it is kinda like Watergate.
It's pretty plain by now that the Republican Party Establishment is not going to forgive Donald Trump for humiliating them last year. They'll be just as happy as Democrats to see him go, if they can somehow help the Democrats force him out without showing too much outward enthusiasm.
Last August, after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination, I reproduced a remark Peggy Noonan made in one of her columns. Here's the remark again, quote :
From what I've seen there has been zero reflection on the part of Republican leaders on how much the base's views differ from theirs and what to do about it. The GOP is not at all refiguring its stands.
Has there been any reflection among GOP leaders in the nine months since, about the meaning of Trump's victory? Not much that I can see.
Sixty-three million Americans rejected establishment politics last November. They took a chance on an outsider. From a field of seventeen seasoned Republican politicians, GOP primary voters selected the one un-seasoned guy. Then sixty-three million of us voted for him in the general.
Does the GOP get this? Have they learned anything from it? Not that I can see.
With some exceptions, of course. GOP elder statesman Pat Buchanan spelled it out in an interview with the Daily Caller this week:
The GOP leadership would like to go back anyway. They think if they can get rid of Trump, that will get rid of Trump_vs_deep_state. They yearn to get back to the futile wars, the free trade sucker economy, the open borders and multiculturalism.
If they can just pull off an impeachment, the Republican party bosses believe, and install some donor-compliant drone in the White House, then we sixty-three million Trump voters will smack our foreheads with our palms and say: "Jeez, we are so dumb! Why did we let ourselves get led astray like that? Why didn't we vote for Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush in the primaries, as you wise elders wanted us to? We're sorry! We promise to follow your advice in future!"
They really think that, the McCains and Grahams and McConnells and Ryans . Get rid of Trump, you get rid of Trump_vs_deep_state, they believe. Then we can all go back to what Orwell called "the dear old game of scratch-my-neighbor." Yep, this is the Stupid Party.
But whether Donald Trump is actually the right person to give us Trump_vs_deep_state is more and more in doubt.
I am of course grateful for the small mercies. Thank you for Jeff Sessions; thank you for the work you're doing on trade; thank you somewhat for Neil Gorsuch, who may yet turn and cuck on us.
Those are small mercies, though. Where's the really big, bold swamp -draining exercise, like the one I just described? Why are we still issuing work permits to illegal aliens? Why no federal legislation to slam a mandatory ten-year sentence on any illegal who, after being deported, comes back in ? Why no request to Congress on funding for the border Wall? For an end to the visa lottery and restrictions on chain migration? When do we start testing the constitutionality of birthright citizenship? Why are we still in NATO ? Why are we still at war with North Korea ( which technically we are , since there hasn't been a peace treaty, only an armistice)?
I like Ann Coulter's analogy: It's as if we're in Chicago, and Trump says he can get us to L.A. in six days; and then for the first three days we're driving towards New York. He can still turn around and get us to L.A. in three days. But, says Ann , she's getting nervous.
Me too.John Derbyshire [ email him ] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him. ) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books . He's had two books published by VDARE.com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT ( also available in Kindle ) and From the Dissident Right II: Essays 2013 . His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com .
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Apr 02, 2017 | thesaker.is
Speech of Lavrov at the Military Academy of the General Staff The Vineyard of the SakerQuestion: The traditional definition of war is "war is nothing more than an extension of state policy by alternate means." We usually understand "alternate means" as military violence and therefore claim that war always involves military action. Do you think it would be correct to say that the nature of war has changed in contemporary circumstances, that is, now the term includes measures for information, economic, political and psychological impact?
Sergey Lavrov: You know, in the West they coined the term 'hybrid war.' As a matter of fact, this is the concept they seem to be forming based on their experience. Unilateral economic sanctions are definitely a declaration of war, no doubt about it. An information war is underway when slander becomes a mandatory condition for the media. This is an objective fact. These days we talk a lot about Syria. Allegedly, there is a non-governmental organisation called the White Helmets funded by several Western countries and countries in the Persian Gulf.
A film about this organisation won the Oscar for best documentary this year. They present themselves as a humanitarian agency helping people attacked by bombs – particularly, in Syria. On several occasions, they were caught lying and showing staged video clips. For one such clip, they painted a girl with red paint and on camera she was sitting down and allegedly suffering from Russian and Syrian bombs. Several days ago in Geneva, an American journalist presented research in which he proved that the White Helmets are fake and that they only deal with developing falsified and provocative news, while dragging Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and armed forces through the mud.
He also proved that they are providing direct assistance to terrorists and extremists, including medical supplies and equipment, and treating injured members of extremist groups. This is just one example. But anywhere you go, when I just try talking to my Western colleagues, the White Helmets are exempt from any criticism and seem to have a monopoly on the truth. There are many other tricks like that. Certainly, in a wider perspective, cyberspace is an area where there is a material possibility to inflict potentially very serious harm. Cyber forces were created and, apparently, they have some significance. This is exactly why we need forums where these things can be discussed as a single package. The military discusses purely military issues, which now extends to cyberwars.
Those dealing with information and sharing experience are trying to convince each other that the media must be used not for provocation but to reconcile people. When it comes to the economy, it should be understood – and many have come to realise this – that unilateral sanctions will come back like a boomerang and hit the countries that joined them, especially small countries. It is very short-sighted to impose unilateral sanctions on a country like Russia, with its huge potential, human and natural resources. By encouraging dialogue in each of these areas to build a general understanding, mutually beneficial and generally acceptable approaches, we need a forum where all these issues can be considered in their relation to each other because they all affect the general status of international relations. Except for the UN, there is no other framework like this. This is a very topical issue and we have no doubt that it will be in the centre of very heated and engaging debates for the foreseeable future.
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www.unz.com
Donald Trump has now named his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a senior adviser, notably on Middle East/Israel issues, and as Kushner fired me ten years ago over these issues, it seemed a good time to review my memories of our (limited) interactions and do what journalists do, make a prognosis about his future efforts.
Kushner was 25 when he bought the New York Observer from investment banker/artist Arthur Carter in 2006, and as all such transactions do, the move set off panic on the editorial side of the paper. The editor, my dear friend Peter Kaplan, now deceased, was at once engaged in a struggle with his new boss over the paper's news budget and independence. For my part I had been a columnist for a few years, protected against attacks and my own ineptitude by my Harvard chum Kaplan (yes, Virginia, that's how media works), and had lately started Mondoweiss there as a personal blog, and because I was vehemently against the Iraq war and beginning to connect that tragedy to the US relationship to Israel in my postings, I was apprehensive about Kushner's view of the blog and me. I knew that he had been a big supporter of the orthodox Jewish Chabad House at Harvard and had lauded Alan Dershowitz there. Not a good sign - when I was discovering Rachel Corrie and The Israel Lobby.
Peter Kaplan was a great student of character; it was his chief delight in life (after a cigar, a turkey leg, and a Preston Sturges film in the middle of the night); and my understanding of Kushner's character was formed by closed-door conversations with Peter. He told me that Kushner was smart, ambitious, and full of hubris. The two statements Peter made that resonate down through the years are: "Jared has ice in his veins." And: "He doesn't know what he doesn't know."
For a little while the clear-skinned young owner took Kaplan on as his grizzled guide to the world of journalism, but that interval was short-lived. It was somewhat shocking to Kaplan that a guy who had no experience of journalism, and was a boob about literature, wasn't a very good reader, had spent his college years doing real estate deals, etc., was eager to make decisions about the paper's values. But such is the way of the world, and after an agonizing couple of years Peter went back to Conde Nast.
I didn't last as long. Jared and I had a few polite conversations in the year that we cohabited on Broadway, and two very uncomfortable meetings over Israel and Palestine. One was before I went out there in July 2006 on his dime to see the country for the first time, during the Lebanon War, and the second one was after I got back that August. In the first, Kushner told me about his Holocaust background, his grandparents who barely survived , and his regard for Israel. When I got back, Kushner and Brian Kempner, the newspaper's publisher who had worked at the Israel lobby group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), couldn't wait to hear what I had seen out there, they said. But when I started talking about the occupation, the room went cold as the poles, and Kushner gazed right through me with those unsmiling dark little eyes. Kaplan was even more uncomfortable than I was, and thankfully brought the tortuous meeting to a close.
But I managed to get a frank description of apartheid in Hebron into the pages of the Observer .
This couldn't last. In February 2007 Kaplan closed his office door and said he was a Zionist, Kushner was a Zionist, Kempner was a Zionist, and the janitor was a Zionist, too, and the newspaper would not pay for me to blog, as I was demanding (at that time I was only paid for published columns). It was fitting; I was gone.
My interactions with Jared were limited, but they don't give me hope about his ability to achieve peace in the Middle East. He lived in a deeply-Zionist-patriarchal mental space then; I never saw him take a step out of it. There was a provincial element to his commitment. As Peter said, he didn't know what he didn't know. The guy who replaced Kaplan was even more of a Zionist than Kaplan, while the nimble-footed Kempner went on to work in the Kushner real estate firm. Kushner's ambition and political shrewdness were evident to us, but I never saw any worldliness or largeness of spirit. He was very impressed by his own family. The big asterisk is that he was 25 and 26. I wouldn't want anyone to judge me on the basis of stuff I said at that age . . .
Lastly, I bear no ill will to Jared Kushner. He paid for my first trip to Israel and Palestine (at 50!); he paid for me to see the occupation. My firing was also a blessing; he cut me loose from the paternalist mainstream media, and I was forced to sink or swim on the internet. To some smaller or bigger degree, I can thank Jared for this website, and the wonderful relationships I have formed through the internet with people of strong hearts and principle, qualities prestige media culture does not select for. For the sake of all of us, I can only hope Kushner gets to enter a larger world too.
Maghlawatan January 10, 2017, 5:09 pmKushner reminds me of a few bosses I have had. They only know what they know which means SFA . Zero interest in the wider world. He probably knows loads about NY real estate and not much elseMivasair January 10, 2017, 9:37 pmVery good profile, Phil. One thing struck me, as it did Keith. The only "peace" that Kushner and people like him want for Israel is the "peace" of total domination and rule over others with no disturbance. So, talking about him bringing "peace" makes no sense whatsoever. That's not at all what he or anyone around him wants.echinococcus January 11, 2017, 1:52 amI suppose the peace of cemeteries is the best quality of peace if you're the undertaker.
eljay January 11, 2017, 7:30 am
rosross January 11, 2017, 5:29 pmKushner likely desires the same sort of Zionist "peace" that jon s advocates, one which:
- allows Israel to remain a religion-supremacist "Jewish State";
- allows Israel to keep as much as possible of what it has stolen;
- absolves Israel of responsibility and accountability for its past and on-going (war) crimes; and
- absolves Israel of its obligations under international law (including RoR).
Israelis and their supporters are forever talking about peace, when anyone of sound mind knows that the issue is not peace but justice for the Palestinians who have had their land stolen by European colonists.Justice first and then peace is possible. Israel pushes the peace line because it knows the issue is not about peace and that a subjugated people like the Palestinians have not a snowball's chance in hell of wielding any sort of power which might contribute to peace.
hungrydave January 14, 2017, 2:44 am Brilliant.
I will remember this. I've had the same thoughts but never realised how to enunciate it so clearly.
Marnie January 11, 2017, 1:04 am
I read somewhere that the soon to be FLOTUS (ivanka kushner) is scared s#%&less of israel. That's good. I don't imagine her husband has any plans to make it one of his homes.Lack of experience/knowledge in the positions being filled is the hallmark of the tRUMP administration, especially wrt tRUMP himself. I have no idea what the next 4 years are going to be like, but i imagine the worst.
http://pre04.deviantart.net/5b05/th/pre/f/2016/272/2/7/end_of_the_world_by_alexiuss-dajaesc.jpg
Pixel January 11, 2017, 5:27 pm
" [Ivanka} is scared s#%&less of israel."Marnie, can you say more? I'm not sure what you mean
Marnie January 12, 2017, 12:39 am
No, I can't find the article I'd read about her fear for husband traveling to zioland. I shouldn't have brought it up without backup. Sorry everybody.YoniFalic January 11, 2017, 1:28 pmWhile the appointment of Kushner is clearly nepotistic, it does not seem much worse than JFK's appointment of his brother. The historical record indicates that Robert Kennedy was if anything much more vile on Israel Palestine issues than Jared Kushner is.
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Sep 24, 2016 | www.antiwar.com
A good friend passed along an article at Forbes from a month ago with the pregnant title, "U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely Within Five Years - But Lacks The Money To Prepare." Basically, the article argues that war is possible - even likely - within five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran, or maybe all three, but that America's army is short of money to prepare for these wars. This despite the fact that America spends roughly $700 billion each and every year on defense and overseas wars.Now, the author's agenda is quite clear, as he states at the end of his article: "Several of the Army's equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients." He's writing an alarmist article about the probability of future wars at the same time as he's profiting from the sales of weaponry to the army.
As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: War is a racket . Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity. In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money.
But back to the Forbes article with its concerns about war(s) in five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran (or all three). For what vital national interest should America fight against Russia? North Korea? Iran? A few quick reminders:
#1: Don't get involved in a land war in Asia or with Russia (Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler all learned that lesson the hard way).
#2: North Korea? It's a puppet regime that can't feed its own people. It might prefer war to distract the people from their parlous existence.
#3: Iran? A regional power, already contained, with a young population that's sympathetic to America, at least to our culture of relative openness and tolerance. If the US Army thinks tackling Iran would be relatively easy, just consider all those recent "easy" wars and military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria
Of course, the business aspect of this is selling the idea the US Army isn't prepared and therefore needs yet another new generation of expensive high-tech weaponry. It's like convincing high-end consumers their three-year-old Audi or Lexus is obsolete so they must buy the latest model else lose face.
We see this all the time in the US military. It's a version of planned or artificial obsolescence . Consider the Air Force. It could easily defeat its enemies with updated versions of A-10s, F-15s, and F-16s, but instead the Pentagon plans to spend as much as $1.4 trillion on the shiny new and under-performing F-35 . The Army has an enormous surplus of tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, but the call goes forth for a "new generation." No other navy comes close to the US Navy, yet the call goes out for a new generation of ships.
The Pentagon mantra is always for more and better, which often turns out to be for less and much more expensive, e.g. the F-35 fighter.
Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and moral) bankruptcy.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
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right out of the Nicolae Ceausescu playbookhttp://www.balkaneu.com/erdogan-inaugurates-presidential-palace/
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