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Neoconservatism Bulletin, 2016

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[Dec 21, 2019] Needed Now a Peace Movement Against the Clinton Wars to Come by Andrew Levine

Notable quotes:
"... As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror" into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice. ..."
Oct 08, 2016 | www.counterpunch.org
Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize -- for not being George W. Bush. This seemed unseemly at the time, but not outrageous. Seven years later, it seems grotesque.

As the steward-in-chief of the American empire, Obama continued Bush's Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and extended his "War on Terror" into Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East. He also became a terrorist himself and a serial killer, weaponized drones and special ops assassins being his weapons of choice.

More

ANDREW LEVINE is a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies, the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

[Mar 29, 2019] America is a banana republic! FBI chief agrees with CIA on Russia alleged election help for Trump

Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
www.sott.net
Reprinted from RT

FBI and National Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.

FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.

"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it.

"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.

Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election to help Trump win, calling info "fuzzy and ambiguous"

... ... ...

[Mar 24, 2019] One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

Highly recommended!
Mar 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: `[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.' |"

From page one of the Barr letter to the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. https://www.scribd.com/document/402973432/AG-March-24-2019-Letter-to-House-and-Senate-Judiciary-Committees#from_embed Some call this merely the "end of the beginning." Further revelations will be emerging, including from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz. " J ustice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday his office is still investigating possible abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the DOJ and FBI in their investigation into President Trump and associates of his 2016 campaign," reported the Washington Examiner this week.

Decameron , 32 minutes ago

However, AG Barr's letter retells the tale of Russian Interference in our elections, according to Mr. Mueller and his team's investigation and indictments. So, the anti-Trump camp will undoubtedly continue to question the 2016 election results, and blame the defeat of HRC on the "Reds." One could wish that DOJ IG Horowitz could investigate and sanction British Intelligence for its use of official and non-official officials in starting this debacle.

[Mar 24, 2019] The manner in which Guccifer 2.0's English was broken, did not follow the typical errors one would expect if Guccifer 2.0's first language was Russian.

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "After reading several articles, it seemed clear that key difficulties for Russians communicating in English include: definite and indefinite articles, the use of presuppositions and correct usage of say/tell and said/told. Throughout 2017, I constructed a corpus of Guccifer 2.0's communications and analyzed the frequency of different types of mistakes. The results of this work corroborate Professor Connolly's assessment. ..."
"... Overall, it appears Guccifer 2.0 could communicate in English quite well but chose to use inconsistently broken English at times in order to give the impression that it wasn't his primary language. The manner in which Guccifer 2.0's English was broken, did not follow the typical errors one would expect if Guccifer 2.0's first language was Russian. ..."
"... Access and motive . . .here are two who had both: Seth Rich and Imran Awan. That our fake news organizations have no interest in either, that should tell you something. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Tunga , 2 hours ago link

"I didn't really address the case that Russia hacked the DNC, content to stipulate it for now." - exce

The State Department paused its investigation of the Secretary's emails so as not to interfere with the Mueller investigation. Here we see Taibbi writes an exhaustive condemnation of the Western press while leaving out the very crux of the story, the very source of the stolen DNC emails was Clapper and Brennan pretending to be Guccifer 2.0.

Pitiful attempt at redemption there Matt. Seriously, go **** your self.

"After reading several articles, it seemed clear that key difficulties for Russians communicating in English include: definite and indefinite articles, the use of presuppositions and correct usage of say/tell and said/told. Throughout 2017, I constructed a corpus of Guccifer 2.0's communications and analyzed the frequency of different types of mistakes. The results of this work corroborate Professor Connolly's assessment.

Overall, it appears Guccifer 2.0 could communicate in English quite well but chose to use inconsistently broken English at times in order to give the impression that it wasn't his primary language. The manner in which Guccifer 2.0's English was broken, did not follow the typical errors one would expect if Guccifer 2.0's first language was Russian.

To date, Connolly's language study has not drawn any significant objections or criticism."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-25/guccifer-20-game-over-year-end-review-0

Any G Dala,

DNC emails were downloaded at 22.3Mbs, a speed which is not possible to achieve remotely, or even local. It is the exact download speed of a thumb drive.

All russian "fingerprints" were embedded in error codes, which had to be affirmatively copied. They were not an accident.

And please remind me, who exactly was it that examined the DNC servers and pointed at Russia?

Access and motive . . .here are two who had both: Seth Rich and Imran Awan. That our fake news organizations have no interest in either, that should tell you something.

[Dec 31, 2016] Trump praises Putin over US sanctions – a move that puts him at odds with GOP by Lauren Gambino and Ben Jacobs in Washington

Notable quotes:
"... Trump is exactly where he is today because he attacked that same party. He called bullshit on the Bush's claims to have made the US safer and called bullshit on the idea that Iraq was something that we should still do in hindsight. He trashed the idea of free trade and TTIP - another Republican shibboleth. He refused to go down the standard Republican route of trashing social security... ..."
"... All he needs to do is call bullshit on this 'evidence' of Russian hacking and remind everyone that it wasn't Russians who manned the planes on 9/11. Trump is a oafish clown - but he's not a standard politician playing standard politics. He can shrug off this oh-so-clever manoeuvre by Obama with no trouble. ..."
"... Sanctions = token gestures that will soon fade into the distance. Much like you know who. Obama is salty because of Kilary getting whupped and Putin out-playing him in Syria. Never thought I would see the day when I sided with Trump over Obama. Interesting times. ..."
"... Yes, the so-called liberals are losing all over. They blame everyone but themselves. The problem is that they have been found out. They were not real liberals at all. They had little bits of liberal policies like "Gay rights" and "bathrooms for Transgenders" and, of course, "Anti-Anti-Semitism Laws" and a few other bits and pieces with which they constructed a sort of camoflage coat, but the core of their policies was Corporatism. Prize exhibits: Tony Blair and Barak Obama. ..."
"... The extreme Left and extreme Right ("Populists") are benefiting by being able to say what they mean, loud and apparently clear. People are not, on the whole, politically sophisticated but they do realise that they have been lied to for a very long time and they are fed up. That is why "Populists are making such a showing in the polls. People don't believe in the centre's "Liberalism" any more. ..."
"... Obama acting like a petulant child that has to leave the game and go home now, so he's kicking the game board and forcing everyone else to clean up his mess. Irresponsible. ..."
"... Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be silent, because Trump is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from the Bush area. You are a wishful thinker, if you think Obama is going anything after he leaves office. ..."
"... So the person awarded a Nobel Peace Prize uses his last weeks in office to sour relations between the only 2 superpowers on Earth for - what ? ..."
Dec 30, 2016 | www.theguardian.com

The president-elect has been consistently -> skeptical about the US intelligence -> consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the 2016 election in his favor – the reason for Obama's new sanctions. At one point, he suggested the culprit might have been China, another state or even a 400lb man in his bedroom .

On taking office in January, Trump might therefore be expected to simply end the Obama sanctions. And as president, he could do so; presidential orders can simply be repealed by the executive branch.

But the situation is not that simple. If Trump did choose to remove the sanctions, he would find himself at odds with his own party. Senior Republicans in Congress responded to the Obama sanctions by identifying Russia as a major geopolitical foe and criticizing the new measures only as a case of too little too late. Some promised a push for further measures in Congress.

Trump may therefore choose not to reverse the new sanctions. If so, he will find himself at odds with the man he so constantly praises.

On Friday, the Kremlin responded to the moves, including the expulsion of 35 suspected intelligence operatives and the closing of two Russian facilities in the US, with a shrug . Putin, it seems, is willing simply to wait until Trump moves into the Oval Office. Trump's tweet suggested he is too.

But such provocative words could not distract the media and public from another domestic concern for Trump – the growing perception that his predecessor has acted to his disadvantage .

"The sanctions were clearly an attempt by the Obama administration to throw a wrench into – or [to] box in – the next administration's relationship with Russia,"

vgnych, 30 Dec 2016 18:56
All Obama does with his clumsy movements is just attempting to blame Russians for Democrat's loss of elections. Also he is obscuring peaceful power transition while at it.

All what Trump needs to do is to just call the looser a loser a move on.

Max South , 30 Dec 2016 18:56
White House/StateDep press release on sanctions is ORWELLIAN: corruption within the DNC/Clinton's manager Podesta undermines the democracy, not its exposure as claimed (let alone the fact that there is still no evidence that the Russian government has anything to do with the hacks).

The press release also talks about how the security of the USA and its interests were compromised, so Obama in effects says that national security interest of the country is to have corrupt political system, which is insane.

This argumentation means that even if Russian government has done the hacking, it was a good deed, there is nothing to sanction Russia for even in such case.

CDNBobOrr , 30 Dec 2016 18:58
'Fraid both Putin and Trump are a lot smarter than Barry. Putin's move in not retaliating and inviting US kids to the Kremlin New Year party was an astute judo throw. And Barry is sitting on his backside wondering how it happened.
antobojar , 30 Dec 2016 19:00
.. Probably Obama's "exceptionalism" made him so clumsy on international affairs stage..

.. just recently.. snubbed by Fidel.. he refused to meet him..
.. humiliated by Raul Castro, he declined to hug president of USA..
.. Duterte described.. hmm.. his provenance..
.. Bibi told him off in most vulgar way.. several times..
.. and now this..
..pathetic..

P.S.
You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination."
Charles de Gaulle.

ukc ltd , 30 Dec 2016 19:07
Sanctions = token gestures that will soon fade into the distance. Much like you know who.

Obama is salty because of Kilary getting whupped and Putin out-playing him in Syria.

Never thought I would see the day when I sided with Trump over Obama. Interesting times. Share Facebook Twitter

foolisholdman -> ukc ltd , 30 Dec 2016 20:01
Yes, the so-called liberals are losing all over. They blame everyone but themselves. The problem is that they have been found out. They were not real liberals at all. They had little bits of liberal policies like "Gay rights" and "bathrooms for Transgenders" and, of course, "Anti-Anti-Semitism Laws" and a few other bits and pieces with which they constructed a sort of camoflage coat, but the core of their policies was Corpratism. Prize exhibits: Tony Blair and Barak Obama.

The extreme Left and extreme Right ("Populists") are benefiting by being able to say what they mean, loud and apparently clear. People are not, on the whole, politically sophisticated but they do realise that they have been lied to for a very long time and they are fed up. That is why "Populists are making such a showing in the polls. People don't believe in the centre's "Liberalism" any more.

bready , 30 Dec 2016 19:22
"US intelligence consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the 2016 election in his favor "

Are your mentors still thinking that people will swallow that fable? The same mentors who understated Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania?

foolisholdman -> bready , 30 Dec 2016 19:36
bready

"US intelligence consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the 2016 election in his favor "

These people either think that an ex-British Ambassador is not an important witness or they don't want to hear anything that contradicts the narrative they have been told to spin. It has to be one or the other.

rocjoc43rd -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:45
Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be slient, because Trump is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from the Bush area. You are a wishful thinker, if you think Obama is going anything after he leaves office.
cosmith , 30 Dec 2016 19:27
So the person awarded a Nobel Peace Prize uses his last weeks in office to sour relations between the only 2 superpowers on Earth for - what ?

American party politics /
Spite ?
Ideological hatred ?

For those of you who are too young to remember, look up "Cold War" and look for references
to Hawks and Doves.

Who are the Hawks now - and who are the Doves ?

The Left/Liberal paradigm is so drastically in need of updating that it is becoming downright dangerous.

Hell hath on fury like a self defined "liberal" scorned.

Haigin88 , 30 Dec 2016 19:30
R.E.M.: 'Exhuming McCarthy'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMedTmZKo38
gottliebvera , 30 Dec 2016 19:34
I think Obama is behaving in a most petulant and non-presidential manner. Lack of decorum as parting shot. Good going.
philo41z , 30 Dec 2016 19:37
We watched trump defeat republican favourites to get the nomination. He has not really needed them as much as they have felt they need him. Then he has big oil in his transition team, tillerson if I am not mistaken, connected to exxon which has oil interests in Russia....

rocjoc43rd , 30 Dec 2016 19:38
I also think this is Obama's move to direct attention away from the cease fire in Syria. There the US has been supporting all these groups, flying air missions and dropping special forces in Syria for years now, and the US has no seat at the table of the cease fire negotiations. That should be very embarrassing for the US, but it apparently is not, because all the media wants to talk about are these sanctions, which seem pretty trivial to me. The Obama/media machine scores another hollow victory. Can't wait until this guy is out of office.
stormsinteacups , 30 Dec 2016 19:38
Still no proof of any meddling by the Russians. Only a last gasp attempt by a weak president in what is starting to look like a boys against men tussle with Putin. Add the Syria ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Putin to this to show how Obama is being outmanouvered at every turn.
Sad to see what a far cry from Obama the candidate Obama the president has turned out to be.
gandalfsunderpants , 30 Dec 2016 19:41
Action makes propaganda's effect irreversible. He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never go back. He is now obliged to believe in that propaganda because of his past action. He is obliged to receive from it his justification and authority, without which his action will seem to him absurd or unjust, which would be intolerable. He is obliged to continue to advance in the direction indicated by propaganda, for action demands more action.
Jacques Ellul:
Friday Night Beers , 30 Dec 2016 19:43
Obama just got dissed big time by Putin. What an inglorious end to an inglorious eight years.
DogsLivesMatter -> Friday Night Beers , 30 Dec 2016 20:05
The Obama administration should be thanking Russian efforts to end the war in Syria. We know the MIC wanted this civil war to go on for another decade.
MacCosham , 30 Dec 2016 19:44
Oh for christ's sake, once again:

There were no hacks, the emails were LEAKED!

Probably by Democrats disgusted by the way Bernie was treated.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/cias-absence-conviction/

PS once you are there, read everything else Craig Murray has written there. This is the ambassador HM government fired for daring to speak out against the Uzbek government's human rights abuses.

PanopticonPlanet , 30 Dec 2016 19:45
All Americans should be alarmed that their country is now losing its edge in terms of the manipulation of other countries' electoral processes. This is "unpresidented". Where previously we had implemented such actions ourselves without fear of reciprocation we should be concerned that we are no longer immune to such machinations by other states. These events may represent a turning point as regards our accepted global hegemony. Share
Tribal War -> PanopticonPlanet , 30 Dec 2016 19:52
USA hacks
USA spies
USA interferes with foreign regimes
USA is number 1 bully and hypocrite

The damn cheek of Russian hack spies interfering with US election and setting them up with an idiot

brianboru1014 , 30 Dec 2016 19:47
Obama has been anti-Russia long before Trump came into the picture.
This article is more of a wish list than anything else.
We are told by 'experts' that 'There is now a public record of what Russia did'

Where is it? I would love to see this.
I do know that the 2 countries that carry out most cyber attacks in the world are the US and it's main ally in the Middle East. Just ask the Iranians what they did.

Leucocephalus , 30 Dec 2016 19:48
Obama complaining about Russian influence in American elections.

Last time I've checked it was Mr. Obama that warned British people against Brexit, wasn't? What about the deposition of an ELECTED president in Ukraine with their support of Obama and EU? Let's talk also about regime changes in Syria, Lybia and Egypt undertaken under Obama's administration? Perhaps we could also remember that Obama's agencies spied 3 million of Spanyards, Merkel, Dilma Rousseff (Brazilian President) and so on... WHAT A HIPOCRISY, OBAMA!!!!

mtkass -> Leucocephalus , 30 Dec 2016 20:07
You have hit the nail on the head on all your points. But America and especially the American military needs a boogy man to justify the trillions of dollars of American tax payer money they request to keep their military empire going. Imagine if there was no boogy man and the conclusion was to half the American military to a size only equal to the next 6 largest militarys instead of the present 13. Incidentally, most of the next largest militarys are allies of the United States.
This whole kerfuffle about Russian hacking has the stink of shooting the messenger. What about concentrating on what was in the leaked e-mails. They showed a high level of deep corruption in the DNC. That is the importance of the hacked e-mails. Whoever hacked and released them to the American public has done the America public a great favor. If Wasserman Shultz in cohoots with Hillary had not swung the primaries in favor of Hillary and if Obama had remembered that the constitution says the government is for the people and by the people (the peoples choice was by a huge margin for Bernie) and come out for Bernie, we wouldn't be in the CF we are in right now. I thought Obama is a constitutional lawyer. So much for the constitution. The only statesman in this mess is Putin. Thank heaven for his level headedness. The American pronouncements have the stink of the build up to another false flag operation (the CIA revelations themselves are probably a false flag operation). I hope Putin can keep his 'cool' in the face of American provocation.
Huddsblue , 30 Dec 2016 20:03
Well what a spiteful, petty man this Obama has turned out to be! This is the first time his side hasn't 'won' and he can't take it so throws his toys out the pram and risks further souring relationships with the East. Thank goodness Putin rose above it.
ID1516963 -> Huddsblue , 30 Dec 2016 20:10
Ha! Obama has obviously nothing to lose and decided to make hay in the limited time he has. More mischief making. Love it. Let's face it the master spiteful petty man is the one about to occupy the white house.

voice__of__reason

, 30 Dec 2016 20:13
This just shows the real character of Obama. Queering the pitch for Trump and the incoming administration. But well done Putin for sidestepping. Clever. Much smarter than Obama. In the end lawyers make bad Presidents and bad Prime Ministers.
TheChillZone , 30 Dec 2016 20:15
Bit of a pot-kettle interface going on here. America leads the way in the hacking of public servers around the world and spying on friend and enemy alike. Not long ago the CIA tapped into Angela Merkel's mobile phone and I don't remember the same level of public outcry. Seems like America is affronted that Russia and others are now doing what the US has done for years. And if it is in fact the Russians - proof not yet forthcoming - this wasn't a hack into the electoral system at all; it was a simple phishing email that the US officials were silly enough to click onto the link.
And finally - what eventually was released was the truth. Clinton was favoured by the DNC, she did say those things to Goldman Sachs, a CNN reporter did provide her with the questions before the presidential debates. The truth is that the US elections were corrupted, but not by the Russians - the culprits lie a little closer to home.
Kano59 , 30 Dec 2016 20:18
With Putin declaring he'll wait to see what Trump's policies are, then it seems he has at least that in common with the US electorate.
Harry Bhai , 30 Dec 2016 20:22
Obama tried to corner Russia, and almost all GOP lawmakers applauded Obama's action. Called it was well overdue. But our smart president-elect comforted crying Putin right away by calling him a smart man for not taking any actions. It is becoming more and more clear that Trump and Putin are made for each other. I think Trump is keeping Putin on his side to take air out of overinflated Chinese balloon. May be he was advised by his team. No one knows his game plan.
flabbotamus , 30 Dec 2016 20:32
Nearly 40 years ago , at the height of the cold war when I joined up to serve my country, never did i dream the day would come when I had more respect for the leader of Russia than a president of the USA and that I would have more faith in the Russian media than our own fake media.

That's what 40 years of liberalism does i guess. Share Facebook Twitter

TyroneBHorneigh -> flabbotamus , 30 Dec 2016 20:38
40 years of Neo-liberalism.
Sparky Patriot , 30 Dec 2016 20:37
Not content with merely stealing the silverware, BO is intent on causing as much mischief as possible before being booted out of the White House, but the Russians are not falling for it. They will be dealing with Donald Trump in a few weeks, and there is no need to respond to Barry's diaper baby antics.
I'm sure the Russians are hacking our internet systems, but the DNC emails that went to WikiLeaks did not come from them. The content, outlining Podesta's plan to discredit Bernie supporters by falsely tying them to violent acts, would indicate that a disgruntled and disgusted DNC employee was more likely the source.
rocjoc43rd , 30 Dec 2016 20:38
The liberal media, I can't wait until they claim that Trump has few paths to victory from this trick bag he is in. We are living in the dying days of the Obama administration. Things will be very different January 20, 2017. Things that appear difficult or impossible now will suddenly be taken care of with the stroke of a pen. It will be exciting to see. Just a few months ago, Trumps path to victory was so small that he shouldn't even bother trying, then it was the electors will do something about Trump. It was all nonsense. This to about Obama limiting Trump is nonsense. Obama's lines in the sand are completely without effect.
HollyOldDog -> asiancelt , 30 Dec 2016 21:37
It is of course impossible as the USA has the most and claimed most advanced spying network on the planet. It totally surrounds both friends and foes alike - with such technical ability the only country who could spy and influence (e.g. arm twisting Merkal is a prime example) on any country at will is the 'exceptional ' US Government.

furiouspurpose

, 30 Dec 2016 20:54
If there was genuine evidence that Russia had somehow swayed the election, Hilary Clinton - who desires power above all other things - would now be bringing a legal case to overturn the result and get a re-election.

But there is no evidence - only lies and cynicism. A few weeks ago I was convinced that US politics had hit a nadir and that it couldn't smell any worse or get any more ridiculous. How wrong I was.

ga gamba , 30 Dec 2016 20:55
The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries – it's done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.

That number doesn't include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn't like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring. [...]

In 59% of these cases, the side that received assistance came to power, although Levin estimates the average effect of "partisan electoral interventions" to be only about a 3% increase in vote share. ( Source )

I understand why some may find outside interference objectionable, but I reckon many of those who think so fail to recognise America's far-from-faultless behaviour. Curses are like chickens; they always come home to roost.

Of course had the DNC leadership and the Clinton camp behaved ethically in the primary by not conspiring to tip the scale in Clinton's favour, the hack would have found nothing. What we have now is Obama forced to divert the public attention because of yet another messy scandal Hillary finds herself involved in. Clinton must be one of the most blessed people on earth; everyone bends over backwards to accommodate her ambitions.

europeangrayling -> ga gamba , 30 Dec 2016 21:23
Also the CIA-Belgian assassination of Lamumba in 61, Congo's first democratically elected president, for the same 'geopolitical' aka 'big business' reasons as the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 53, who wanted the nationalize Iranian oil for their people, and Lumumba had similar 'socialist' ideas for all the vast Congolese resources. To cut out the western business interests. And think how well the Congo has fared since, one of the worst, saddest places, chaos, civil war, more dead than in Rwanda or anywhere I think. They have not recovered from that.

And Iran, they were democratic, secular, elected a guy like Mossadegh, they were 'European', but the the US and Britain overthrew him on behest of British-US oil interests, installed the Shah, their puppet dictator, and the blow-back was the Iranian religious right-wing revolution and dictatorship some 20 years later. And now the Iranian people and our 'foreign policy' are suffering.

And all these US and CIA 'activities' the government had admitted and declassified, like the Gulf of Tonkin lie and false flag in Vietnam, because it was so long ago nobody cares, so it's no 'conspiracy' here, just history. But now these Clinton Democrats they really love and trust anything the CIA says, of course, they are big patriots now, and call people unpatriotic and foreign agents if they question the so honorable CIA, because they are on Hillary's side now.
And the CIA in cahoots with Bush and Cheney also told us how there were these big, scary WMDs in Iraq, and mushroom clouds, and how Saddam had links with Al Qaida, all obvious lies, that any amateur who knew basic world history could tell you even then.

And speaking of 'meddling', and overthrowing democratic governments, the US did the same under Obama and Hillary in Honduras just a few years ago, backed the violent coup of a democratic leftist government there, and they still refuse to call it a coup, and have legitimized the new corrupt and violent regime, are training their army, etc. Even though the EU and the US ambassador to Honduras called it a coup at the time.

And for the same reasons, that leftist government didn't want to play ball with big US and western 'business interests', energy companies, didn't want to sell them their rivers and resources like the new 'good' regime now. And since that coup, 100s of indigenous activists and environmentalists have been killed, like Berta Caceres, and the violence and corruption has gone up big time under the new regime, with 1000s more killed 'in general'. Yet Obama is so concerned about 'the integrity of democracy' and elections and freedom and all that, what a nice guy.

fanUS , 30 Dec 2016 20:58
The real question that Americans should be asking why Barack Obummer failed again to provide security in case of hacking Democrat's emails?

Clinton did not deny that emails published by WikiLeaks were genuine.
That is called freedom of press.
What's wrong with public finding the truth about Clinton? Share Facebook Twitter

RadLadd -> fanUS , 30 Dec 2016 21:00
As soon as you post "Obummer" you show yourself to be immature. Share Facebook Twitter
an opinion -> RadLadd , 30 Dec 2016 21:09
He is Obummer. Share Facebook Twitter
Paull01 -> fanUS , 30 Dec 2016 21:13
They are private servers, why would the government have any involvement whatsoever in the servers of political parties during an election?

The whole point is interference in the election process not who they interfered with. Share Facebook Twitter

roman vega , 30 Dec 2016 20:59
Send Obama to therapist ... urgent.. Share Report
roman vega -> J.K. Stevens , 30 Dec 2016 21:07
Haven't you noticed that whole of the West has already moved that way? I do not mean pro-Putin, I mean priority of national interests at home and some isolationism.
HollyOldDog -> MtnClimber , 30 Dec 2016 21:30
Obama is leaving office with the record of saving American troops lives by the process of using drones which on dodgy information mainly target wedding parties. Share Facebook Twitter
geofffrey , 30 Dec 2016 20:42
Appears suspiciously likely that Obama is just bitter that his legacy is about to be dumped in the nearest skip on Jan 20, and wants to make trouble for Trump during his last 3 weeks in office.

Hard to see how Putin could have engineered Hillary Clinton's defeat, given she won the popular vote by 3 million.

Also Obama is extremely hypocritical as the CIA has repeatedly interfered in the affairs of other countries over the past 60 years.

I hope Trump and Putin become buddies. Share

Burnaby1000 -> geofffrey , 30 Dec 2016 20:45
The CIA never released emails of any country's people. It's simply bad tradecraft, meaning that it can't be used when one really needs it. Share Facebook Twitter
geofffrey -> Burnaby1000 , 30 Dec 2016 20:51
Didn't Wikileaks release those emails.. Share Facebook Twitter
melodrama1 -> geofffrey , 30 Dec 2016 20:56
The story is that they were 'leaked' to Wikileaks and that only stuff that helps Trump was leaked. There are loads of Republican/Trump mails that remain secret (presumably). Sounds plausible to me but the how the hell would I know? Share Facebook Twitter
tomspen , 30 Dec 2016 20:42
Putin outmaneuvers Obama, again. Share Facebook Twitter
pragmata -> tomspen , 30 Dec 2016 20:47
Obama outmanoevres Trump. Share Facebook Twitter
J.K. Stevens -> tomspen , 30 Dec 2016 20:47
Putin goes rogue. You're putin me on. Share Facebook Twitter
tomspen -> pragmata , 30 Dec 2016 20:48
Not really. Democrats lost the election, through their own fault, and now Putin is waiting till Trump comes in office. All will go swimmingly and we can look forward to better relations between the USA-Russia. Win win. Share Facebook Twitter
furiouspurpose , 30 Dec 2016 20:42

On Thursday, the Arizona senator John McCain and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said in a joint statement: "The retaliatory measures announced by the Obama administration today are long overdue.

That's all I needed to know. If lunatic war monger John McCain wants to ratchet up the tension with a nuclear power - then it is very wise to do the opposite. Share

Burnaby1000 -> furiouspurpose , 30 Dec 2016 20:44
But he has 48 Dems who support him, and most Republicans. Share Facebook Twitter
MtnClimber -> furiouspurpose , 30 Dec 2016 20:45
Sure. Let's let Putin control our democracy. He and his BFF, Trump, will keep our democracy safe /s Share Facebook Twitter
J.K. Stevens -> furiouspurpose , 30 Dec 2016 20:45
Putin is/has been the provocateur. Keep up. Share Facebook Twitter
Burnaby1000 , 30 Dec 2016 20:43
Wouldn't it be hilarious if a revolution broke out next year in Russia, over the downward spiralling Russian economy, just when Putin thinks he has victory in sight?

But wait--didn't that happen in 1917?

Yep, think it did... Share Facebook Twitter

pawsfurthought -> Burnaby1000 , 30 Dec 2016 20:51
Parallels with the public mood in Russia leading up to 1917? Zero. Share Facebook Twitter
Burnaby1000 -> pawsfurthought , 30 Dec 2016 20:58
"Peace, Land, Bread!!!!!"

Parallels -- 100% Share Facebook Twitter

HollyOldDog -> Burnaby1000 , 30 Dec 2016 21:21
Ah! The evident effects of sipping too much Death Wish Coffee 64 fl.oz - 3,472 mg of caffeine it could do serious damage to your brain. Share Facebook Twitter
osprey1957 , 30 Dec 2016 20:44
Wow, the Trump/kremlin brigade zoomed in on this comments section faster than greased lightening! Good to know that some people just love them some fascism! Share Facebook Twitter
Burnaby1000 -> osprey1957 , 30 Dec 2016 20:50
They HAVE been doing this for quite some time. Share Facebook Twitter
furiouspurpose -> osprey1957 , 30 Dec 2016 21:10
Red baiting won't close down the debate. There's still no evidence of Russian hacking of the US election.

And fascism is shouting people down who ask for evidence and don't just follow the President because he is attacking the outsiders. Share Facebook Twitter

TheControlLeft -> osprey1957 , 30 Dec 2016 21:12
It's preferable to the Obama brigades sponsorship of Islamic terrorism Share Facebook Twitter
EmperorWearsNoCloths , 30 Dec 2016 20:45
Good move by Obama. Trump will soon have to clarify where he stands in regards to Putin. Share Facebook Twitter
HollyOldDog -> EmperorWearsNoCloths , 30 Dec 2016 21:12
I don't usually follow American elections but is this the usual way to hand over to a new president is to try to kick him in the teeth? Share Facebook Twitter
Burnaby1000 , 30 Dec 2016 20:47
As always, it is the US Senate that brings forth the best in the US inuncertain times.

It was Republican senators who were very critical of Bush that eventually got him to do the surge.

Similarly, it will be the Senate that applies pressure in the right place to keep Trump in check.

Who knows, he may even come up with one or two good ideas. Share Facebook Twitter

grodhagen -> Burnaby1000 , 30 Dec 2016 21:10
It were GOP senators leading the huzzas for invading Iraq too. But Ted Cruz? James Inhoffe? Half of the GOP senators are just hirelings for big business. Share Facebook Twitter
Putzik , 30 Dec 2016 20:48
It's not too late fir Obama to cluster bomb Russian troops in Syria and Ukraine.

Now that would certainly constipate the Golden Domed donald. Share Facebook Twitter

HollyOldDog -> Putzik , 30 Dec 2016 21:09
Such a move - did you manage to think this one up by yourself? Or is it just recient history repeating itself - you have only a one tracked mind, a bit like your icon. Share Facebook Twitter
Putzik -> HollyOldDog , 30 Dec 2016 22:37
I am not aware that the US has yet bombed the Russian fascist hordes.

Never too late though, eh? Share Facebook Twitter

dddxxx , 30 Dec 2016 20:49
The fact that the Russian sanctions makes things difficult for blowhard Trump is not the issue nor the intent. President Obama was acting in response to Russia's interference with our diplomats and cyber attacks. This needed to be done. As to Trump, that's tough. Share Facebook Twitter
furiouspurpose -> dddxxx , 30 Dec 2016 21:06
No - he was reacting to Russia "hacking the elections". What specifically did they do? What evidence exists of this? Share Facebook Twitter
WillKnotTell -> furiouspurpose , 30 Dec 2016 21:16
The lack of evidence is the evidence. Ask any Trumpeteer and believer of Peter Schweizer. Share Facebook Twitter
monsieur_flaneur , 30 Dec 2016 20:49
Obama, envisioning a spot on Mt Rushmore, exits a laughing stock. Ah well

Not4TheFaintOfHeart , 30 Dec 2016 20:59
Why would Russia be happy that Clinton lost? Why would any foreign power be happy that Clinton lost?...
How many years did HRC, in her arrogance-fuelled denial, provide foreign intelligences with literally tonnes of free info??!
furiouspurpose , 30 Dec 2016 21:03

Trump might therefore be expected to simply end the Obama sanctions. .... But if he did choose to do so, he would find himself at odds with his own party.

Trump is exactly where he is today because he attacked that same party. He called bullshit on the Bush's claims to have made the US safer and called bullshit on the idea that Iraq was something that we should still do in hindsight. He trashed the idea of free trade and TTIP - another Republican shibboleth. He refused to go down the standard Republican route of trashing social security...

All he needs to do is call bullshit on this 'evidence' of Russian hacking and remind everyone that it wasn't Russians who manned the planes on 9/11. Trump is a oafish clown - but he's not a standard politician playing standard politics. He can shrug off this oh-so-clever manoeuvre by Obama with no trouble.

an opinion -> hawkchurch , 30 Dec 2016 21:07
Putin is playing obama like a fiddle and make him irrelevant!
diddoit , 30 Dec 2016 21:04
Make America and Russia ... Great Again.

Intelligence sharing, to tackle terror, is only the start of what's likely to become a strong partnership.

I bet Intel agents can hardly wait ..lol

Munchausen007
Simple solution, publish the commenter geolocation and ban proxy, clean the comment section from putinbots. Putin like ASBO's must stop to do more harm against democracy.
Down2dirt -> Munchausen007 , 30 Dec 2016 19:17
What a foolish comment.
Ilurktostudyyouall -> Munchausen007 , 30 Dec 2016 19:39
And what happens when you begin to realise many are not putinbots?
Not4TheFaintOfHeart -> Ilurktostudyyouall , 30 Dec 2016 19:58
I'm sure they'll find some excuse to get around that... 'It's elephants all the way down', don't forget
Julian Beach , 30 Dec 2016 19:06
...an attempt rendered utterly futile by Putin refusing to carry out tit-for-tat expulsions.

Premier League trolling. Again.

fivefeetfour -> Jonathan Stromberg , 30 Dec 2016 22:47
There's still no evidence regarding the origin of the cyber attack. I've seen you posting a link to the report. The first line in it is a disclaimer: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within". Which is very wise from them.
ukc ltd , 30 Dec 2016 19:07
Sanctions = token gestures that will soon fade into the distance. Much like you know who. Obama is salty because of Kilary getting whupped and Putin out-playing him in Syria. Never thought I would see the day when I sided with Trump over Obama. Interesting times.
foolisholdman -> ukc ltd , 30 Dec 2016 20:01
Yes, the so-called liberals are losing all over. They blame everyone but themselves. The problem is that they have been found out. They were not real liberals at all. They had little bits of liberal policies like "Gay rights" and "bathrooms for Transgenders" and, of course, "Anti-Anti-Semitism Laws" and a few other bits and pieces with which they constructed a sort of camoflage coat, but the core of their policies was Corporatism. Prize exhibits: Tony Blair and Barak Obama.

The extreme Left and extreme Right ("Populists") are benefiting by being able to say what they mean, loud and apparently clear. People are not, on the whole, politically sophisticated but they do realise that they have been lied to for a very long time and they are fed up. That is why "Populists are making such a showing in the polls. People don't believe in the centre's "Liberalism" any more.

Potyka Kalman , 30 Dec 2016 19:09
Oh the War Party. Trump rally should point them out as such. So the light shines in those dark spots.

You Russians have a strange sense of humour.

AveAtqueCave , 30 Dec 2016 19:13
Ben, I found Glenn Greenwald's take on you quite interesting. Have you responded? And, yes, I know, my polite and pertinent question will violate the terms here.
Ilurktostudyyouall -> AveAtqueCave , 30 Dec 2016 19:42
Cheers for that. False news angle now in total tatters
furiouspurpose -> AveAtqueCave , 30 Dec 2016 21:36
What does Glenn Greenwald know? With his crappy little "Pulitzer Prize".
John Blenkins -> AveAtqueCave , 30 Dec 2016 23:17
Good to see someone with the bollox to call a spade a spade.
More importantly it helps lift the eyelids of those who think our msm tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
AveAtqueCave -> Tercole , 30 Dec 2016 19:22
The American system is based on open legal proceedings.

Have you seen the evidence Russia perpetrated the leaks?

Please provide.

Terry Phillips , 30 Dec 2016 19:19
You just know these people, like Johnny boy, who are pointing fingers at Russia are doing so based upon long laid plans to bind up Trump from building a healthy relationship with Russia which would put an end to terrorism and likely all of these petty little wars that are tearing the world to pieces. These people want war because division keeps them in power and war makes them lots of money. I hope that Trump and Putin can work together and build a trust and foundation as allies in that together we can stamp out terrorism and stabilize the worlds conflicts. Everything these people do in the next 20 days has a single agenda and that is to cause instability and roadblocks for Trump and his team. Hope is just around the corner people so let's help usher it in.
Ilurktostudyyouall -> 79pentland , 30 Dec 2016 19:54
Don't trust anyone until you know them. Been married and watched it turn to shit? You can't really trust anyone. The same can be said for any country member.
bready , 30 Dec 2016 19:22
"US intelligence consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the 2016 election in his favor "

Are your mentors still thinking that people will swallow that fable? The same mentors who understated Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania?

foolisholdman -> bready , 30 Dec 2016 19:36
bready

"US intelligence consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the 2016 election in his favor "

These people either think that an ex-British Ambassador is not an important witness or they don't want to hear anything that contradicts the narrative they have been told to spin. It has to be one or the other. Share

bready -> foolisholdman , 30 Dec 2016 19:54
Some people don't need to hear narratives to discern the cheap tricks of politics.
86753oh9 , 30 Dec 2016 19:24
First... let's see some actual evidence/proof. Oh, that's right, none has been offered up.
Second... everyone is upset that the DNC turd was exposed, but no one upset about the existence of the turd. ?

Obama acting like a petulant child that has to leave the game and go home now, so he's kicking the game board and forcing everyone else to clean up his mess. Irresponsible.

TheWindsOfFreedom -> 86753oh9 , 30 Dec 2016 19:33
Hundred times repeated lie will become the truth... that's the US officials policy for decades now. In 8 years, they did nothing, so they are trying to do "something" in the last minute. For someone, who's using his own brain is all of this just laughable. United States are not united I guess. Guess, that Merkel is the next on the list...
Fulhamred , 30 Dec 2016 19:26
Hopefully now this will enable senate and congress republicans to prevent these crazy ideas of Russian appeasement take hold and pursue a hardline against Russia, Hamas, Iran and Cuba.
Down2dirt -> Fulhamred , 30 Dec 2016 19:31
They'll probably do that. Business as usual. To pursue a hard line against Isis enablers like Saudi and Qatar, now that would be a surprise.
Individualist -> Down2dirt , 30 Dec 2016 19:35
Actually the biggest ISIS enabler was Cheney.
Down2dirt -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:42
Well you're probably right about that.
Waaarrrggghhh , 30 Dec 2016 19:27
Not really. Obama is just making himself look like an idiot.
rocjoc43rd -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:45
Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be silent, because Trump is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from the Bush area. You are a wishful thinker, if you think Obama is going anything after he leaves office.
cosmith , 30 Dec 2016 19:27
So the person awarded a Nobel Peace Prize uses his last weeks in office to sour relations between the only 2 superpowers on Earth for - what ?

American party politics /
Spite ?
Ideological hatred ?

For those of you who are too young to remember, look up "Cold War" and look for references
to Hawks and Doves.

Who are the Hawks now - and who are the Doves ?

The Left/Liberal paradigm is so drastically in need of updating that it is becoming downright dangerous.

Hell hath on fury like a self defined "liberal" scorned. Share

Individualist -> cosmith , 30 Dec 2016 19:33
So you are blaming the President (the current one) for addressing the fact that a foreign power attempted to mess with a US election?
rocjoc43rd -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:42
I think you can blame Obama for underestimating Putin. Remember when he told Putin before the 2012 election off mike that he would have more leeway after the election. Remember when Romney in 2012 warned us that Russia was a big threat and Obama thought that was silly. Obama has been outclassed by Putin at every turn. Whatever else you may say about Trump, he recognizes that Putin is worthy adversary not one to be marginalized. Putin has manage to marginalize the US in Syria despite all the money and effort we have dumped into it.
Banker1 -> Individualist , 30 Dec 2016 19:48
The foreign power did the American people a favor when it exposed the corruption within the Democratic Party; something the establishment media was apparently unable or unwilling to do. Rather than sanctioning Putin, Americans should be thanking him!
Haigin88 , 30 Dec 2016 19:30
R.E.M.: 'Exhuming McCarthy'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMedTmZKo38
Mick Readdin , 30 Dec 2016 19:31
Whatever the outcome, the winner is.... Putin!

His recent announcement (no tit-for-tat) was masterful politicking. Should Trump refuse to do anything, Putin knows he can wrap Trump around his finger, with the added bonus of both US houses kicking off.

If Trump does do something, relations will sour and Putin can blame the US.

gottliebvera , 30 Dec 2016 19:34
I think Obama is behaving in a most petulant and non-presidential manner. Lack of decorum as parting shot. Good going.
UnitedundertheSun -> Jonathan Stromberg , 30 Dec 2016 23:10
Attack Russia with a wet lettuce? Oh the pain! And gives Putin the high moral ground. Brilliant politics from Obama.

All to hamfistedly conceal what a rotten dysfunctional political organisation he heads.

Obama plays snakes and ladders while Putin is playing chess.

VultureTX -> Pitthewelder , 30 Dec 2016 21:50
" and decides not to accept it he will have to make it public,"

Solely a presumption on your part, a simple statement by the new agency heads saying that the info is inconclusive and the method of the investigation will not be revealed cancels your whole argument. Sure the press will howl, but Trumps using Twitter to talk to the people and unless someone leaks you got nothing.

chelsea55 , 30 Dec 2016 19:35
Seems a no brainer, reverse Obama's ridiculous posturing gesture. As if the US doesn't have a long track record of interfering in the affairs of other countries.
chelsea55 -> LithophaneFurcifera , 30 Dec 2016 21:57
Personally I think the US should do as it wishes but it's extremely hypocritical to act shocked when the same meddling is returned by others. Obama is acting foolishly as if the final weeks of his presidency have any genuine traction on future events.
philo41z , 30 Dec 2016 19:37
We watched trump defeat republican favourites to get the nomination. He has not really needed them as much as they have felt they need him. Then he has big oil in his transition team, tillerson if I am not mistaken, connected to exxon which has oil interests in Russia....if trump removed big oil from his team maybe he can get out of this without escalating the issue or appearing to be a putin puppet...

[Dec 31, 2016] What Happened to Obamas Passion

This was written in 2011 but it summarizes Obama presidency pretty nicely, even today. Betrayer in chief, the master of bait and switch. That is the essence of Obama legacy. On "Great Democratic betrayal"... Obama always was a closet neoliberal and neocon. A stooge of neoliberal financial oligarchy, a puppet, if you want politically incorrect term. He just masked it well during hist first election campaigning as a progressive democrat... And he faced Romney in his second campaign, who was even worse, so after betraying American people once, he was reelected and did it twice. Much like Bush II. He like another former cocaine addict -- George W Bush has never any intention of helping American people, only oligarchy.
Notable quotes:
"... IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. ..."
"... We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues. ..."
"... These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power. ..."
"... Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back ..."
"... he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans. ..."
"... I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator. ..."
"... Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is. ..."
"... So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. ..."
"... I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans ..."
"... He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation. ..."
"... I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are. ..."
Aug 06, 2011 | nytimes.com

When Barack Obama rose to the lectern on Inauguration Day, the nation was in tatters. Americans were scared and angry. The economy was spinning in reverse. Three-quarters of a million people lost their jobs that month. Many had lost their homes, and with them the only nest eggs they had. Even the usually impervious upper middle class had seen a decade of stagnant or declining investment, with the stock market dropping in value with no end in sight. Hope was as scarce as credit.

In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it, and how it was going to end. They needed to hear that he understood what they were feeling, that he would track down those responsible for their pain and suffering, and that he would restore order and safety. What they were waiting for, in broad strokes, was a story something like this:

"I know you're scared and angry. Many of you have lost your jobs, your homes, your hope. This was a disaster, but it was not a natural disaster. It was made by Wall Street gamblers who speculated with your lives and futures. It was made by conservative extremists who told us that if we just eliminated regulations and rewarded greed and recklessness, it would all work out. But it didn't work out. And it didn't work out 80 years ago, when the same people sold our grandparents the same bill of goods, with the same results. But we learned something from our grandparents about how to fix it, and we will draw on their wisdom. We will restore business confidence the old-fashioned way: by putting money back in the pockets of working Americans by putting them back to work, and by restoring integrity to our financial markets and demanding it of those who want to run them. I can't promise that we won't make mistakes along the way. But I can promise you that they will be honest mistakes, and that your government has your back again." A story isn't a policy. But that simple narrative - and the policies that would naturally have flowed from it - would have inoculated against much of what was to come in the intervening two and a half years of failed government, idled factories and idled hands. That story would have made clear that the president understood that the American people had given Democrats the presidency and majorities in both houses of Congress to fix the mess the Republicans and Wall Street had made of the country, and that this would not be a power-sharing arrangement. It would have made clear that the problem wasn't tax-and-spend liberalism or the deficit - a deficit that didn't exist until George W. Bush gave nearly $2 trillion in tax breaks largely to the wealthiest Americans and squandered $1 trillion in two wars.

And perhaps most important, it would have offered a clear, compelling alternative to the dominant narrative of the right, that our problem is not due to spending on things like the pensions of firefighters, but to the fact that those who can afford to buy influence are rewriting the rules so they can cut themselves progressively larger slices of the American pie while paying less of their fair share for it.

But there was no story - and there has been none since.

In similar circumstances, Franklin D. Roosevelt offered Americans a promise to use the power of his office to make their lives better and to keep trying until he got it right. Beginning in his first inaugural address, and in the fireside chats that followed, he explained how the crash had happened, and he minced no words about those who had caused it. He promised to do something no president had done before: to use the resources of the United States to put Americans directly to work, building the infrastructure we still rely on today. He swore to keep the people who had caused the crisis out of the halls of power, and he made good on that promise. In a 1936 speech at Madison Square Garden, he thundered, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me - and I welcome their hatred."

When Barack Obama stepped into the Oval Office, he stepped into a cycle of American history, best exemplified by F.D.R. and his distant cousin, Teddy. After a great technological revolution or a major economic transition, as when America changed from a nation of farmers to an urban industrial one, there is often a period of great concentration of wealth, and with it, a concentration of power in the wealthy. That's what we saw in 1928, and that's what we see today. At some point that power is exercised so injudiciously, and the lives of so many become so unbearable, that a period of reform ensues - and a charismatic reformer emerges to lead that renewal. In that sense, Teddy Roosevelt started the cycle of reform his cousin picked up 30 years later, as he began efforts to bust the trusts and regulate the railroads, exercise federal power over the banks and the nation's food supply, and protect America's land and wildlife, creating the modern environmental movement.

Those were the shoes - that was the historic role - that Americans elected Barack Obama to fill. The president is fond of referring to "the arc of history," paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous statement that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." But with his deep-seated aversion to conflict and his profound failure to understand bully dynamics - in which conciliation is always the wrong course of action, because bullies perceive it as weakness and just punch harder the next time - he has broken that arc and has likely bent it backward for at least a generation.

When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not mean that we should wait for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking with a voice that cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth of police dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true and repugnant face in public.

IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it. He never explained that decision to the public - a failure in storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome it. But the arc of his temperament just didn't bend that far.

Michael August 7, 2011

Eloquently expressed and horrifically accurate, this excellent analysis articulates the frustration that so many of us have felt watching Mr...

Bill Levine August 7, 2011

Very well put. I know that I have been going through Kόbler-Ross's stages of grief ever since the foxes (a.k.a. Geithner and Summers) were...

AnAverageAmerican August 7, 2011

"In that context, Americans needed their president to tell them a story that made sense of what they had just been through, what caused it,...

cdearman Santa Fe, NM August 7, 2011

Unfortunately, the Democratic Congress of 2008-2010, did not have the will to make the economic and social program decisions that would have improved the economic situation for the middle-class; and it is becoming more obvious that President Obama does not have the temperament to publicly push for programs and policies that he wants the congress to enact.
The American people have a problem: we reelect Obama and hope for the best; or we elect a Republican and expect the worst. There is no question that the Health Care law that was just passed would be reversed; Medicare and Medicare would be gutted; and who knows what would happen to Social Security. You can be sure, though, that business taxes and regulation reforms would not be in the cards and those regulations that have been enacted would be reversed. We have traveled this road before and we should be wise enough not to travel it again!

SP California August 7, 2011

Brilliant analysis - and I suspect that a very large number of those who voted for President Obama will recognize in this the thoughts that they have been trying to ignore, or have been trying not to say out loud. Later historians can complete this analysis and attempt to explain exactly why Mr. Obama has turned out the way he has - but right now, it may be time to ask a more relevant and urgent question.

If it is not too late, will a challenger emerge in time before the 2012 elections, or will we be doomed to hold our noses and endure another four years of this?

farospace san francisco August 7, 2011

Very eloquent and exactly to the point. Like many others, I was enthralled by the rhetoric of his story, making the leap of faith (or hope) that because he could tell his story so well, he could tell, as you put it, "the story the American people were waiting to hear."

Disappointment has darkened into disillusion, disillusion into a species of despair. Will I vote for Barack Obama again? What are the options?

Richard Katz American in Oxford, UK August 7, 2011

This is the most brilliant and tragic story I have read in a long time---in fact, precisely since I read when Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt. When will a leader emerge with a true moral vision for the federal government and for our country? Someone who sees government as a balance to capitalism, and a means to achieve the social and economic justice that we (yes, we) believe in? Will that leadership arrive before parts of America come to look like the dystopia of Johannesburg?

We (yes, we) recognise that capitalism is the most efficient way to maximise overall prosperity and quality of life. But we also recognise that unfettered, it will ravage the environment, abuse labor, and expand income disparity until violence or tragedy (or both) ensues.

These are the lessons we've learned since the industrial revolution, and they're the ones that we should be drawing from the past decade. We recognise that we need a strong federal government to check these tendencies, and to strike a stable, sustainable balance between prosperity, community, opportunity, wealth, justice, freedom. We need a voice to fill the moral vacuum that has allowed the Koch/Tea/Fox Party to emerge and grab power.

Americans know this---including, of course, President Obama (see his April 13 speech at GW University). But as this article by Dr. Westen so effectively shows, Obama is incompetent to lead us back to America's traditional position on the global economic/political spectrum. He's brilliant and eloquent. He's achieved personal success that is inspirational. He's done some good things as president. But he is not competent to lead us back to a state of American morality, where government is the protector of those who work hard, and the provider of opportunity to all Americans.

Taxes, subsidies, entitlements, laws... these are the tools we have available to achieve our national moral vision. But the vision has been muddled (hijacked?) and that is our biggest problem. -->

An Ordinary American Prague August 7, 2011

I voted for Obama. I thought then, and still think, he's a decent person, a smart person, a person who wants to do the best he can for others. When I voted for him, I was thinking he's a centrist who will find a way to unite our increasingly polarized and ugly politics in the USA. Or if not unite us, at least forge a way to get some important things done despite the ugly polarization.

And I must confess, I have been disappointed. Deeply so. He has not united us. He has not forged a way to accomplish what needs to be done. He has not been a leader.

I've heard him called a mediator, a conciliator, a compromiser, etc. Those terms indicate someone who is bringing divergent views together and moving us along. That's part of what a leader does, though not all. Yet I don't think he's even lived up to his reputation as a mediator.

Almost three years after I voted for Obama, I still don't know what he's doing other than trying to help the financial industry: the wealthy who benefit most from it and the technocrats who run it for them. But average working people, people like myself and my daughter and my grandson, have not been helped. We are worse off than before. And millions of unemployed and underemployed are even worse off than my family is.

So whatever else he is (and that still remains a mystery to me), President Obama is not the leader I thought I was voting for. Which leaves me feeling confused and close to apathetic about what to do as a voter in 2012. More of the same isn't worth voting for. Yet I don't see anyone out there who offers the possibility of doing better.

martin Portland, Oregon August 7, 2011

This was an extraordinarily well written, eloquent and comprehensive indictment of the failure of the Obama presidency.

If a credible primary challenger to Obama ever could arise, the positions and analysis in this column would be all he or she would need to justify the Democratic party's need to seek new leadership.

I knew that Obama was a charade early on when giving a speech about the banking failures to the nation, instead of giving the narrative Mr. Westen accurately recommended on the origins of the orgy of greed that just crippled our economy and caused suffering for millions of Americans, he said "we don't disparage wealth in America." I was dumbfounded.

He should have been condemning the craven, wanton, greed of nihilistic financial gangsters who hijacked our economy. Instead he seemed to be calling for all Americans not to hate rich people. That was not the point. Americans don't hate rich people, but they should hate rich people who acquire their wealth at the expense of the well being of an entire nation through irresponsible, avaricious, and in some instances illegal practices, and legally bribe politicians to enact laws which allow them to run amok over our economy without supervision or regulation.

I knew then that Obama was either a political lemon, in over his head, an extremely conflict averse neurotic individual with a compulsive need for some delusional ideal of neutrality in political and social relations, or a political phony beholden to the same forces that almost destroyed the country as Republicans are.

Perhaps all of these are true.

[Dec 31, 2016] I simply dont believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump told a significant fraction of the population that he understood their problems and that he would fix them. He told enough people what they wanted to hear - and did so with a convincing tone - that he got himself elected. That's how you win. You sell people on your vision. If you tell a good story most people aren't going to reality-check it. Sad but true. ..."
"... On the importance of narrative: Drew Westen, "What Happened to Obama?" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/what-happened-to-obamas-passion.html ..."
"... Matt Taibbi in 2011: "I simply don't believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc." ..."
"... Unfortunately, there are at best a handful of Democrats who've been doing that. That should have been our message 24/7/365 for the past eight years. (That and the story Westen laid out.) It was not. ..."
"... Yup. And that is how you lose the Presidency, the House, the Senate, 30-someodd (?) governorships, and 900-someodd state legislative seats over the past eight years. ..."
Dec 31, 2016 | www.robustanalysis.net
Chris G said... December 29, 2016 at 05:50 PM

And this is telling us something significant: namely, that supply-side economic theory is and always was a sham.

Urgh. That it is and always a sham is irrelevant. It is THE NARRATIVE that matters! They had a compelling story and they stuck to it. That's how you sell politics in this country.

Trump told a significant fraction of the population that he understood their problems and that he would fix them. He told enough people what they wanted to hear - and did so with a convincing tone - that he got himself elected. That's how you win. You sell people on your vision. If you tell a good story most people aren't going to reality-check it. Sad but true.

On the importance of narrative: Drew Westen, "What Happened to Obama?" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/what-happened-to-obamas-passion.html

Chris G said in reply to Mr. Bill... Anyway, get involved. December 29, 2016 at 06:39 PM

Manned the phone banks and held signs for my state rep again this year. (Bowed out of going door-to-door this election though.) Tough race against a right-wing jerk. My guy won - in no small part because he's incredibly engaged with the community. I'll be back out for him again in 2018. That stated, I'm not sure how to make an impact at the national level - in part I think because I live in a very blue state. Keeping the goons from a establishing a local foothold seems a good place to start. Building resilient local networks feels like it will be essential for getting through the next four years.

Chris G said in reply to Chris G ... December 29, 2016 at 06:30 PM

Matt Taibbi in 2011: "I simply don't believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc."

Unfortunately, there are at best a handful of Democrats who've been doing that. That should have been our message 24/7/365 for the past eight years. (That and the story Westen laid out.) It was not.

Taibbi continued: "That they won't do these things because they're afraid of public criticism, and "responding to pressure," is an increasingly transparent lie. This "Please, Br'er Fox, don't throw me into dat dere briar patch" deal isn't going to work for much longer. Just about everybody knows now that they want to go into that briar patch."

Yup. And that is how you lose the Presidency, the House, the Senate, 30-someodd (?) governorships, and 900-someodd state legislative seats over the past eight years.

[Dec 31, 2016] Like Iraq WMD Fiasco, Russia Story Does Not Add Up

If such attempts were really registered, the question is were those attempts to hack US sites from Russian IP space a false flag operation, probably with participation of Ukrainian secret services? '
As one commenter noted: "The Ukrainian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West and Russia for years for their own political advantage."
If so what is the agenda outside obvious attempt to poison Us-Russian relations just before Trump assumes presidency. Neocon in Washington are really afraid losing this plush positions. And there is the whole colony of such "national security professionals" in Washington DC. For example Robert Kagan can't do anything useful outside his favorite Russophobic agenda and would be an unemployed along with his wife, who brought us Ukrainian disaster.
Notable quotes:
"... President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote. ..."
"... The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up. ..."
"... Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration. ..."
"... Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. ..."
"... Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here. ..."
"... We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across. ..."
"... The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location. ..."
"... "If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization," McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack." ..."
"... I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation of the current time? ..."
"... A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water may be directed to the Palestinians! ..."
"... It's been said that on average Americans are like mushrooms – "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit!" ..."
"... And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE. ..."
"... NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored outfit, especially a Russian effort. ..."
"... Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored." ..."
"... We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that Trump is unfit and illegitimate. ..."
"... I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something. ..."
"... This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous. ..."
"... Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." ..."
"... WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools." ..."
"... The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc, via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks came from elsewhere. ..."
"... Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe. ..."
"... McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward. ..."
"... McCain is the real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples. ..."
"... After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma. ..."
"... Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world. ..."
"... If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'. It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine. ..."
"... So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal, unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content*** of the emails? It wouldn't. ..."
"... Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior? ..."
Dec 30, 2016 | mishtalk.com

Yesterday, President Obama expelled 35 Russian "Operatives" from the Russian Embassy .

Is there any evidence those expelled are "intelligence operatives"? Any hard evidence Russia was behind the Hillary hacks? Any credible evidence that Putin himself is to blame?

The answers are No, No, and No. Yet, once again the American press is again asked to co-sign a dubious intelligence assessment.

... ... ....

Something Stinks

The Rolling Stone comments Something About This Russia Story Stinks

In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.

The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up.

If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices in both parties are saying this now.

Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen attack." The Democratic National Committee, meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is " insufficient " as a response to "attacks on the United States by a foreign power."

The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser.

Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick to use phrases like "Russia hacked the election."

This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it hasn't always been great evidence ), or whether Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states (a far more outlandish tale backed by no credible evidence ).

As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies.

And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters – like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 – have attempted to argue that Trump surrogates may have been liaising with the Russians because they either visited Russia or appeared on the RT network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely on unnamed security sources.

Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration.

Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind.

Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here.

We just don't know, which is the problem.

We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across.

Where the Hell is the Evidence?

'I Can Guarantee You, It Was Not the Russians'

John McAfee, founder of the security firm McAfee Associates, says 'I Can Guarantee You, It Was Not the Russians' .

The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location.

McAfee argues that the report is a "fallacy," explaining that hackers can fake their location, their language, and any markers that could lead back to them. Any hacker who had the skills to hack into the DNC would also be able to hide their tracks, he said

"If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization," McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack."

Question of Patriotism

It's not patriotic to accept accusations as facts, given US history of lies, deceit, meddling, and wars.

Related

keepitsimple , December 30, 2016 1:41:03 at 1:41 PM
The gullibility and ignorance of the typical media lapdog is appalling, and whores like McCain and Graham will use them shamelessly to promote their twisted, warmongering agenda. The same old story, over and over again.
Bobdough , December 30, 2016 10:51:52 at 10:51 PM
Not gullibilty, but complicity
The_Fish , December 30, 2016 2:07:19 at 2:07 PM
I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation of the current time?

No problem if they deliver proof.

James Greenberg , December 30, 2016 6:30:47 at 6:30 PM
Read 1984. It will explain EVERYTHING.
The_Fish , December 30, 2016 7:05:07 at 7:05 PM
Net control very likely in Europe soon with public administration of the web/content. Might at least help reduce the unemployment rate. Looked over the 2016 Bilderberg attendees too. MSM attendees interesting vs political bias they exhibit.

Whoever thinks there aren't people behind the scenes with a plan is naive and woe betide anyone upsetting that plan.

Crysangle , December 30, 2016 8:56:05 at 8:56 PM
Unemployment rate read last refuge from the official economy. Not the alt. web that takes away motivation, it is a pressure valve for people who find the official direction nothing short of insulting. The majority of social media users won't be distracted.

Noticed zh on Italy for you if you had not picked it up

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-30/italy-urges-europe-begin-censoring-free-speech-internet

Michael G , December 31, 2016 9:53:11 at 9:53 AM
A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water may be directed to the Palestinians!

Over ten million get running water for 12 hrs a week, while in Israel (borders move every day as the world says nothing) there are no water restrictions zero! So, while Palestinians struggle to live in hot barren desert conditions (food and medicine is also denied children die of treatable cancer often as medication is blocked), a 5 min drive away millions of gallons are used to create a green, lush paradise for the Jewish Masters!

Did you know US laws were changed in 1968 to allow "Dual Citizens" to be elected and appointed to government positions and today many of the top posts are citizens of Israel and America WTF?

Trump needs to make a daily dose of Red Pills the law

Michael G , December 31, 2016 9:58:31 at 9:58 AM
Oops the 10M fig is a bit high but it's at least double the Jewish population, yet they get 97% this is slow moving genocide yet it's never even acknowledged
Greg , December 30, 2016 2:07:48 at 2:07 PM
Syria is about gas pipelines. Corporations want to profit from the gas pipeline through the region and wr the people are supposed to send our children to war over it and pay taxes tpbsupport the effort. Rissia wants pipelines from their country under the Black sea and Irans pipelines to the north. The US is supporting Qatar pipeline and LNG from our own shores to the EU.
The_Fish , December 30, 2016 2:09:55 at 2:09 PM
Some rumours Obama to be considered for UN role and Cameron NATO.
Germ , December 30, 2016 2:13:34 at 2:13 PM
It's been said that on average Americans are like mushrooms – "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit!"
Winston , December 30, 2016 3:43:28 at 3:43 PM
"These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," (Obama) wrote.

And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE.

Note he avoided the phrase, "slam dunk"

Winston , December 30, 2016 3:52:29 at 3:52 PM
NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored outfit, especially a Russian effort.

Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored."

fingerhole , December 30, 2016 5:24:36 at 5:24 PM
Any government that claims a right to secrecy over its affairs is going to use lying as a policy.
Steven milgrom , December 30, 2016 4:17:51 at 4:17 PM
Snowden says that it is auite easy to trace the source of the hackers.
madashellowell , December 30, 2016 4:21:48 at 4:21 PM
We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that Trump is unfit and illegitimate.

I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something.

Fred Rogers , December 31, 2016 1:25:43 at 1:25 PM
Well, it is an established and accepted fact that Richard Nixon was a very intelligent guy. None of Nixon's detractors ever claimed he was stupid, and Nixon won reelection easily.

Tricky Dick was just a tad "honesty challenged", and so is Obama. They were/are both neo-keynesians, both took their sweet time ending stupid wars started by their predecessors even after it was clear the wars were pointless.

Then again, I doubt Obozo is as smart as Nixon. Soros is clearly the puppeteer controlling what Obama does. Soros is now freaking out that his fascist agenda has been exposed.

vooch , December 30, 2016 5:18:15 at 5:18 PM
This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous.
Winston , December 30, 2016 5:24:35 at 5:24 PM
http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/did-russia-tamper-with-the-2016-election-bitter-debate-likely-to-rage-on/

Excerpt:

"While security companies in the private sector have said for months the hacking campaign was the work of people working for the Russian government, anonymous people tied to the leaks have claimed they are lone wolves. Many independent security experts said there was little way to know the true origins of the attacks.

Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups."

WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools."

The_Fish , December 30, 2016 5:54:31 at 5:54 PM
2015 Bilderberg. Looking down the attendees and subjects covered. Interesting some of the main anti-Brexit groups had representatives there, suggests HC picked for 2016 US election, Cyber-security and etc. Look at the key topics. How they all helped define 2016. So many current intertwined themes.

Little people upset the apple-cart? http://www.globalresearch.ca/bilderberg-chooses-hillary-clinton-for-2016/5454829

wootendw , December 30, 2016 6:01:33 at 6:01 PM
"We just don't know "

The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc, via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks came from elsewhere.

greg , December 30, 2016 9:09:50 at 9:09 PM
One of the leakers is dead, we know that.
joelg5 , December 30, 2016 6:35:45 at 6:35 PM
Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe.

McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward.

The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when JFK took an independent view, so Trump will need the USA Marines on his side. McCain is the real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples.

After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma.

Perhaps the Clinton Foundation and nascent Obama foundation feel it in their financial interests to nurture the misma.

Cha-ching, cha-ching. Money to be made in demonizing Russia.

Ron J , December 31, 2016 12:32:19 at 12:32 PM
"The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when JFK took an independent view "

All the circumstantial evidence pointed to Oswald. No one has ever proven otherwise, in over 50 years.

After 50 years of being propagandized by conspiracy book writers, it isn't surprising that anything is widely believed at this point. The former curator of the 6th Floor Museum, Gary Mack, believed there was a conspiracy, but over time came to realize that it was Oswald, alone.

CJ , December 30, 2016 8:15:54 at 8:15 PM
When liberal Rolling Stone questions the Obama/DNC propaganda, you know for certain that they have lost even their base supporters (the ones that can still think). The BS has just gotten too stupid.
Truth seeker , December 30, 2016 9:32:32 at 9:32 PM
Why is the WSJ strongly supporting Obama here but also saying he waited way to long to make this move? I don't always agree with them nor do I with you.

Ok I haven't read the comments but would only say that when Vladimir Putin the once leader of the KGB becomes a preacher and starts criticizing the West for abandoning its Christian roots, it's moral dignity, that for me doesn't just stink, it raises red flags all over the place. I think Trump and some of the rest of u r being set up here-like lambs to the slaughter. Mish your naοvetι here surprises me!

Bobdough , December 30, 2016 11:00:12 at 11:00 PM
The Russians are coming!

Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world.

greg , December 30, 2016 9:52:15 at 9:52 PM
Germany takes back its gold from US. Finally, after the Fed Res refused an audit request. http://www.pravdareport.com/business/finance/27-12-2016/136521-gold-0/
Simon Hodges , December 31, 2016 7:57:09 at 7:57 AM
If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'. It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine.

The Ukranian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West and Russia for years for their own political advantage. If I was Trump then when I took office I would want an extremely thorough investigation into the activities of the CIA by a third reliable party.

Seenitallbefore , December 31, 2016 9:48:10 at 9:48 AM
Don't be stupid. The Russians did it. CNN reported it, so it must be true.
Winston , December 31, 2016 10:22:42 at 10:22 AM
Supporting -EXACTLY- the points I've previously made here: Russian Hackers Said To "Penetrate US Electricity Grid" Using Outdated Ukrainian Malware

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-31/russian-hackers-said-penetrate-us-electricity-grid-using-outdated-ukrainian-malware

Excerpt: But was it really Russian meddling? After all, how does one prove not only intent but source in a world of cyberespionage, where planting false flag clues and other Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) meant to frame a specific entity, is as important as the actual hack.

Robert M. Lee, CEO and founder of cybersecurity company Dragos, which specializes in threats facing critical infrastructure, also noted that the IOCs included "commodity malware," or hacking tools that are widely available for purchase.

He said:

1. No they did not penetrate the grid.
2. The IOCs contained *commodity malware* – can't attribute based off that alone.

Fred Rogers , December 31, 2016 1:09:53 at 1:09 PM
So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal, unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content*** of the emails? It wouldn't.

Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior?

And as "proportional retaliation" for this Russian whistle blowing, Obozo is evicting 35 entertainment staff from the Russian embassy summer camp?

I doubt Hollywood or San Francisco has the integrity to admit they backed the wrong loser when they supported Obozo but they should think about their own credibility after January 20th. Anyone who is still backing Obozo is just too stupid to tie their own shoes much less vote

[Dec 30, 2016] The Coup against Trump and His Military

Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Notable quotes:
"... In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'. ..."
"... Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly. ..."
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
Dec 28, 2016 | www.unz.com

Introduction

A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup' is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.

The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.

The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives, mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.

The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and legitimacy.

The Coup as 'Process'

In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'.

Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies in Congress and the Judiciary.

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking office in January.

While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.

Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.

Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure – accusing President-Elect Trump of

  1. being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
  2. blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.

The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass media.

In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists.

The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!

The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.

Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia, the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like Jill Stein.

The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention: The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties, and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival 'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry' Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.

ORDER IT NOW

The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election – essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.

President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and place of our choosing".

Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo – and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.

Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance

Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress. He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.

Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three retired generals to key Defense and Security positions – indicating a power struggle between the highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.

Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his cabinet who had their own allied business associations.

One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL, George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security and intelligence positions.

The Coup: Can it succeed?

In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation' on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks – right up to the very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.

Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.

If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').

He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.

(Reprinted from The James Petras Website by permission of author or representative)

Kirt December 28, 2016 at 3:19 pm GMT

A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power. But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the whole system?

John Gruskos , December 28, 2016 at 4:16 pm GMT

If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a failure.

Robert Magill , December 28, 2016 at 5:30 pm GMT

Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations

The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the Camelot image?

Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his wife and kids?

Replies: @Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.

Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced: "This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"

I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.

I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1 challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.

Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). , @animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.

What a god-awful president.

An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.

The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless stupidity --

If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's & their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the drain if they thought it to their political advantage.

Brαs Cubas , December 28, 2016 at 6:17 pm GMT

Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?

Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)

Happy new year!

schmenz , December 28, 2016 at 9:05 pm GMT
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a failure.

Exactly...

Svigor , December 28, 2016 at 9:28 pm GMT

The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists.

On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.

The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.

And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American forces' legitimacy.

The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!

This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.

The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating" "report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.

This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject to future events.

Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.

Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.

Replies: @Seamus Padraig

The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit less so.

So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about Russia.

Lieutenant Morrisseau , December 28, 2016 at 11:27 pm GMT

MAN PAD LETTER – DM 24 DEC 2016

I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.

Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.

Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's Air Force planes operating in Syria still–that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the UN.

Given this I think we are all in very great danger today–now– AND I think we have to press hard to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.

This truly is an emergency.

TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and substantive and decent or courageous.]

IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]–a felony under existing laws. –Quite possibly an impeachable offense.

"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.

If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things in the far fuzzy future–or NOT.

Respectfully,

Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
–FOR TRUMP–
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775
[email protected]
802 645 9727

• Replies: @Bruce Marshall The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!

It needs to be published as a feature story.

Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.

Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big, and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as we speak.

Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.

BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.

Bruce Marshall , December 29, 2016 at 6:05 am GMT • 100 Words @Lieutenant Morrisseau MAN PAD LETTER - DM 24 DEC 2016


I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.

Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.

Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the UN.

Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.

This truly is an emergency.

TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and substantive and decent or courageous.]

IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws. --Quite possibly an impeachable offense.

"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.

If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.

Respectfully,

Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775
[email protected]
802 645 9727

The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!

It needs to be published as a feature story.

Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.

Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big, and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as we speak.

Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.

BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.

• Replies: @El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).

What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?

Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.

Oh my. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

Mark Green says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment December 29, 2016 at 6:39 am GMT • 600 Words

This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump–not Obama–that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump–out of fear and necessity–run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?–Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?–Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

• Replies:

@Authenticjazzman

Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.

Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist. ,

@Seamus Padraig

In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications, though:

Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,

@Rurik

Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.

For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that Trump is their man.

Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not until. At least that is my hope, however naοve.

It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own game. , @map I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.

How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors. ,

@RobinG "

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "

THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more empty symbolism."
Meanwhile...
The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment
The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election

Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.

@Tomster

Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.

Pirouette , December 29, 2016 at 7:08 am GMT

The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now be tied by all the traitors that run the US.

You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.

(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.

You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality: are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?

This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?

Max Havelaar , December 29, 2016 at 10:45 am GMT

My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo loss!

The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's choir send to the bottom of the black sea.

Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.

Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:

• Replies: @annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Karl , December 29, 2016 at 11:20 am GMT

the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before Dr Stein's recount circuses.

They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches – it wouldn't fly.

Nothing else they try will fly.

Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.

@Seamus Padraig
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3] There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise (18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s) conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4] In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#Summary

What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally--you know, a kosher nostra!

mp , December 29, 2016 at 11:23 am GMT

In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups

The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic. In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for a coup.

If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.

El Dato , December 29, 2016 at 11:39 am GMT
@Bruce Marshall The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!

It needs to be published as a feature story.

Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.

Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big, and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as we speak.

Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.

BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.

Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).

What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?

Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.

Oh my.

Authenticjazzman , December 29, 2016 at 1:00 pm GMT
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.

Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.

Agent76 , December 29, 2016 at 1:59 pm GMT

D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.

Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)

It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984.

Skeptikal , December 29, 2016 at 3:00 pm GMT
@Robert Magill
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the Camelot image?

Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/

I expect Obama loves his kids.

Great analysis from Petras.

So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced: "This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"

I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.

I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1 challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.

Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).

animalogic , December 29, 2016 at 3:01 pm GMT • 100 Words

@Robert Magill

Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the Camelot image?

Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/

Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's & their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the drain if they thought it to their political advantage.

Seamus Padraig says: • Website

@Svigor

The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.

The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating" "report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.

This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject to future events.

Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.

Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.

The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent by way of silence.

That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit less so.

So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about Russia.

Seamus Padraig says: • Website December 29, 2016 at 3:25 pm GMT • 1

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications, though:

Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.

Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just more empty symbolism.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all the Zios.

They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") – Caligula

Seamus Padraig says: • Website December 29, 2016 at 3:28 pm GMT

@Karl the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before Dr Stein's recount circuses.

They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.

Nothing else they try will fly.

Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.

Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.

It seems you may be on to something:

RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3] There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise (18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of, the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s) conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4] In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#Summary

What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personally–you know, a kosher nostra!

annamaria , December 29, 2016 at 4:36 pm GMT

@Max Havelaar My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo loss!

The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's choir send to the bottom of the black sea.

Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.

Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0

The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell – who has never been in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor – is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.

• Agree: Kiza • Replies: @Anonymous
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.

So, what to do? , @Max Havelaar A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.

Maybe the Russian FSB an get to him.

Durruti , December 29, 2016 at 4:57 pm GMT

Nice well written article by James Petras.

I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as to when the Coup D'etat is going to – or has already taken place .

The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2 million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.

Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.

Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.

I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below, for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.

Respect All! Bow to None!

Merry Christmas!

God Bless!

[MORE]
For THE RESTORATION OF THE REPUBLIC

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles "

The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.

We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.

The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the Republic were interrupted by their murder.

A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy, left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.

In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.

In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.

In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class, by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.

The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings cannot stay even with the inflation rate.

The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures, and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700 military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military and 16 associated secret agencies.

The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.

The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population; the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.

The United States is No longer Sovereign

The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.

The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government, with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.

For Love of Country

The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts, will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.

As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:

"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living':"

"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation."

Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means a world-wide reduction of armaments "

Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people. We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.

For the Democratic Republic!
Sons and Daughters of Liberty
[email protected]

Anonymous , December 29, 2016 at 5:02 pm GMT

@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.

The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.

It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.

So, what to do?

• Replies: @Bill Jones The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.

My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?

The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?

As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.

Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:

My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.

At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.

Miro23 , December 29, 2016 at 5:31 pm GMT

If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably split the same way.

The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined these agencies in the first place to serve their country – not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects, and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.

Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.

Rurik , December 29, 2016 at 5:42 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.

For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that Trump is their man.

Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not until. At least that is my hope, however naοve.

It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own game.

Art , December 29, 2016 at 7:36 pm GMT • 100 Words

I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.

The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.

If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!

Peace - Art

• Agree: Seamus Padraig • Replies: @RobinG "If we get past the inauguration...."

Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?

Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.

A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.

Francis Boyle writes:

"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.

Just have the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)

Svigor , December 29, 2016 at 9:52 pm GMT

That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.

True.

alexander , December 29, 2016 at 10:08 pm GMT • 200 Words

Dear Mr. Petras,

It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of hacking the election against Hillary.

Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you seem to believe is in the offing ?

It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with Moscow.

What for ?

It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?

Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining to stuff ..like 9-11 ?

Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?

They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before Trumps inauguration.

Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?

• Replies: @annamaria

"They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before Trumps inauguration."

The subtitles are quite direct in presenting the US deciders as criminal bullies: http://www.fort-russ.com/2016/12/russia-obama-was-most-evil-president.html

@Tomster What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.

RobinG , December 29, 2016 at 10:25 pm GMT

@Art I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel has disarmed the Jew community – they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite – the most power two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.

The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia – hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.

If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!

Peace --- Art

"If we get past the inauguration ."

Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) – doing his best to screw things up before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?

Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act – providing aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.

A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)

• Replies: @Art Hi RobinG,

This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!

The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.

Really - how pissed off can they be?

Peace --- Art

p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.

map , December 29, 2016 at 10:41 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors.

• Replies: @joe webb masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably did not come from Trump.

As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis."

That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public opinion.

Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.

I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now.
Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains for the jews.

Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...

Joe Webb , @RobinG "A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash."

Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians, while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

Realist , December 29, 2016 at 11:05 pm GMT • 100 Words

"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."

You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.

There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.

joe webb , December 29, 2016 at 11:35 pm GMT • 200 Words

@map I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors.

masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably did not come from Trump.

As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis."

That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public opinion.

Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.

I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now.
Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains for the jews.

Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but

Joe Webb

• Replies: @map The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

Stebbing Heuer says: • Website December 29, 2016 at 11:36 pm GMT

Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining to stuff ..like 9-11 ?

I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else.

annamaria , December 29, 2016 at 11:50 pm GMT

@Realist "The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."

You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.

There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.

The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration: http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies – the hordes of fanatical jihadis.

• Replies: @Realist Great observations. Thanks. Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
Art , December 30, 2016 at 1:06 am GMT • 100 Words @RobinG "If we get past the inauguration...."

Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?

Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.

A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.

Francis A. Boyle
Law Building
504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.
Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)

Hi RobinG,

This is much ado about nothing – in a NYT's article today – they said that the DNC was told about being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 – they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!

The RNC got smart – not the DNC – it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.

Really – how pissed off can they be?

Peace - Art

p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.

• Replies: @RobinG Hi Art,

I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking is nil.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.

Svigor , December 30, 2016 at 2:20 am GMT • 100 Words

Looks like I spoke too soon:

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/312132-fbi-dhs-release-report-on-russia-hacking

The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek inside the Democrat machine.

Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand!

RobinG , December 30, 2016 at 5:37 am GMT

@Art Hi RobinG,

This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!

The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.

Really - how pissed off can they be?

Peace --- Art

p.s. I do not blame Obama – he had to do something – looks like he did the minimum.

Hi Art,

I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking is nil.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.

• Replies: @Art
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
anon , December 30, 2016 at 6:33 am GMT

https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf

This is a very underwhelming document.

I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks' leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.

No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.

Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?

From WikiLeaks:

"From:[email protected] To: [email protected] Date: 2015-02-19 00:35 Subject: 2 things

Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd

The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.

Note the Disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .

• Replies: @Seamus Padraig
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC


Realist , December 30, 2016 at 8:17 am GMT

@annamaria The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration: http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html

"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ... the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently working on."

Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical jihadis.

Great observations. Thanks.

map , December 30, 2016 at 9:16 am GMT

@joe webb masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably did not come from Trump.

As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis."

That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public opinion.

Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.

I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now.
Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains for the jews.

Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...

Joe Webb

The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

• Replies: @Tomster "treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them. , @joe webb good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about
Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?

Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.

As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.

(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)

How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have ample resources and could pony up the dough.

The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on, even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion. The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.

As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.

Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like the Jews.

The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be
democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\

For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.

The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.

All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.

finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.

Joe Webb

Seamus Padraig says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment December 30, 2016 at 2:05 pm GMT

@anon https://www.us-cert.gov/sites/default/files/publications/JAR_16-20296A_GRIZZLY%20STEPPE-2016-1229.pdf

This is a very underwhelming document.

I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks' leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.

No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.

Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?

From WikiLeaks:

"From:[email protected] To: [email protected] Date: 2015-02-19 00:35 Subject: 2 things

Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd

The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.

Note the Disclaimer:

DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within. DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.

His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

• Replies: @geokat62
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:

Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker

https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ , @alexander Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people over the last sixteen years...

Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss or admit.

Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign, came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.

He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...

.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times, who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"

Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his bets.

In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although he did not state it outright.

Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close to what actually happened.

So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had him shot in the back.....four times...

And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute" Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.

But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?

Skeptikal , December 30, 2016 at 2:38 pm GMT • 100 Words

"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. "

The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."

A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist. A black mark on both countries' report cards.

geokat62 , December 30, 2016 at 2:52 pm GMT @Seamus Padraig
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

"Was" is the operative word:

Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker

https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/


RobinG , December 30, 2016 at 4:02 pm GMT

@map I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.

What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing project.

Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews. It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.

Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries. So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.

Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians, workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just to get by?

The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews, therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.

So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their pride in nationalist endeavors.

"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive the nails, throw out the trash."

Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians, while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.

RobinG , December 30, 2016 at 4:32 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "

THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more empty symbolism."
Meanwhile
The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment
The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election

Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.

Art , December 30, 2016 at 4:49 pm GMT

@RobinG Hi Art,

I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking is nil.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.

What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.

RobinG - Agree 100% – some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art

Tomster , December 30, 2016 at 5:03 pm GMT

@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!

Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role. And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.

Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's beginning to look that way.

Or is Trump just being a fox?

Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.

This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating. And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.

As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.

Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.

And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.

Didn't you?

Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.

This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel (which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown. Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli pressure.

Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.

Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.

I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.

Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?

Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.

Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.

Tomster , December 30, 2016 at 5:14 pm GMT @alexander

Dear Mr. Petras,

It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of hacking the election against Hillary.

Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you seem to believe is in the offing ?

It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with Moscow.

What for ?

It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?

Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining to stuff.....like 9-11 ?

Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?

They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before Trumps inauguration.

Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?

What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains are?). Who knows? – but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.

Tomster , December 30, 2016 at 5:16 pm GMT

@map The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs – who have done virtually nothing for them.

alexander , December 30, 2016 at 5:28 pm GMT

@Seamus Padraig

An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.

Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people over the last sixteen years

Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss or admit.

Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign, came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.

He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment

.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times, who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"

Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his bets.

In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although he did not state it outright.

Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close to what actually happened.

So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had him shot in the back ..four times

And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute" Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.

But hey, that's life in the USA .Right, Seamus ?

joe webb , December 30, 2016 at 6:15 pm GMT

@map The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.

It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.

The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just triangulation against the left.

I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.

good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about
Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?

Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.

As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.

(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)

How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have ample resources and could pony up the dough.

The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on, even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion. The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.

As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.

Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like the Jews.

The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be
democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\

For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.

The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.

All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.

finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
Joe Webb

Realist , December 30, 2016 at 6:57 pm GMT • 100 Words

Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.

January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.

lavoisier says: • Website Show Comment Next New Comment December 31, 2016 at 1:38 am GMT • 100 Words

@joe webb

Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.

I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.

[Dec 22, 2016] Arming Ukraine Is a Bad Idea The American Conservative

Dec 22, 2016 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The first several months of a new administration are inevitably seen as an opening for those who hope to influence the White House over the next four years. The Senate Ukraine Caucus-a bipartisan group of senior lawmakers who have lobbied intensively for a closer U.S.-Ukraine relationship-hopes to take advantage of this sensitive period, in which the new president will order policy reviews, modifications in existing programs, or even a clean break from the past.

In a letter to President-elect Trump, the caucus writes that it is absolutely critical for the United States to enhance its support to Kiev at a time when Vladimir Putin's Russia continues to support a separatist movement on Ukrainian soil. "Quite simply," the group claims , "Russia has launched a military land-grab in Ukraine that is unprecedented in modern European history. These actions in Crimea and other areas of eastern Ukraine dangerously upend well-established diplomatic, legal, and security norms that the United States and its NATO allies painstakingly built over decades."

On this score, the senators are correct. Russia's stealth invasion, occupation, and annexation of the Crimean Peninsula was for all intents and purposes a land-grab denounced not only by the United States but by the United Nations as a violation of state sovereignty and self-determination.

But let's not kid ourselves; this isn't the first time a stronger power will attempt to change the borders of a weaker neighbor, nor will it be the last. The Russians saw an opportunity to immediately exploit the confusion of Ukraine's post-Viktor Yanukovych period. Moscow's signing of the Minsk accords, an agreement that was designed to de-escalate the violence in Eastern Ukraine through mutual demobilization of heavy weapons along the conflict line and a transfer of border control from separatist forces back to the Ukrainian government, has been stalled to the point of irrelevance.

It is incontrovertible that, were it not for Russia's military support and intervention in the summer of 2014, the Ukrainian army would likely have been able to defeat the separatist units that were carving out autonomous "peoples' republics" in the east-or at the very least, degrade rebel capabilities to such an extent that Kiev would be able to win more concessions at the negotiating table.

Yet while we should acknowledge Russia's violations of international law and the U.N. Charter, U.S. and European policymakers also need to recognize that Ukraine is far more important for Moscow's geopolitical position than Washington's.

There is a reason why Vladimir Putin made the fateful decision in 2014 to plunge Russian forces into Ukraine, and it wasn't because he was itching for a war of preemption. He deployed Russian forces across the Ukrainian border-despite the whirlwind of international condemnation and the Western financial sanctions that were likely to accompany such a decision-because preserving a pro-Russia bent in the Ukraine body politic was just too important for Moscow's regional position.

Grasping this reality in no way excuses Moscow's behavior. It merely explains why the Russian government acted the way it did, and why further U.S. military assistance to the Ukrainian security forces would be ill-advised. In fact, one could make a convincing case that providing hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance to the Ukrainian government wouldn't help the situation at all, and might lead Kiev to delude itself into thinking that Washington will come to its immediate military aid in order to stabilize the battlefield.

Since 2015, the United States Congress has authorized $750 million to improve the defensive capabilities of the Ukrainian military and security forces. Congress has followed up those funds with an additional $650 million earmarked for the Ukrainians over the next two years, a hefty sum that the next administration would probably use as a message to the Russians that further territorial encroachment on Ukrainian territory would produce more casualties in their ranks.

What the next administration needs to ask itself, however, is whether more money thrown at the Ukraine problem will be more or less likely to cause further violence in the country and turmoil for Ukraine's elected government. Russia has demonstrated consistently that it will simply not permit a pro-Western democratic government from emerging along its western border-and that if a pro-Western government is formed in Kiev, Moscow will do its best to preserve a pro-Russian bent in Ukraine's eastern provinces. Hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriations haven't forced Russia to change that calculation so far; it's not likely that hundreds of millions more will be any more successful. Indeed, every time Washington has escalated its rhetoric or authorized money for Ukraine's military, the Russians have responded in equal terms.

The political crisis in Ukraine is far from resolved, in large measure because of Russia's own actions on the ground and its nonexistent implementation of the Minsk peace agreement. But the situation in the east, while not fully peaceful by any means, is far less violent than it was at the war's peak in 2015. Sometimes, not weighing in can be just as smart for the U.S. national interest as getting involved-a reflex that is has been the forte of Washington's foreign policy establishment since the end of the Cold War.

Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities.

[Dec 15, 2016] Georgia asks Trump to investigate DHS cyberattacks

Dec 15, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com
Pavlo Svolochenko , December 14, 2016 at 2:43 pm
Georgia asks Trump to investigate DHS 'cyberattacks'

If you want to know what Washington is doing at any given time, just look at what they're accusing the competition of.

yalensis , December 14, 2016 at 5:05 pm
As the Worm Turns!
For all those Amurican rubes out there who beleived that Homeland Security was protecting them against foreign terrorists – ha hahahahahaha!

[Dec 05, 2016] Capitalism Requires World War by Cathal Haughian via TheSaker.ie,

www.zerohedge.com

It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.

The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.

The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923 with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.

The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.

The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s – all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).

Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market – say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).

One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.

As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.

Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest rates.

Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally, due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative. How has the system remained stable for so long?

All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.

US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006. And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)

What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of gold for dollars was revoked.

GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power to Saudi Arabia.

The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.

Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it consumed.

The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited life raised the rate of profit!

They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.

Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency. The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971 because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.

The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.

The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop to the robbery.

In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.

Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale solutions, which are intertwined .

One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of labour to the present dominant class.

The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."

Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits after WW2.

Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs, i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.

The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:

If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47 million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.

The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies, trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.

Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.

Uncle Sugar

Seriously - Having a Central Bank with a debt based monetary system requires permanent wars. True market based capitalism does not.

Father Thyme

Your logical fallacy is no true scotsman
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

Wed, 03/02/2016 - 23:21 | 7264475 Seek_Truth

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

If wealth were measured by creating strawmen- you would be a Rothschild.

gwiss

That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."

Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion to each other is another example.

Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system. However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than a fine simmer.

The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world war, which is why we are going to have one.

Wed, 03/02/2016 - 23:27 | 7264485 GRDguy

Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."

AchtungAffen

Really? I thought that was the re-prints of Mises Canada, Kunstler or Brandon Smith. In comparison, this article is sublime.

Caviar Emptor

Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.

Wed, 03/02/2016 - 22:56 | 7264423 Jack's Raging B...

That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.

So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.

My Days Are Get...

From Russia News Feed:

Cathal Haughian Bio :

I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families. I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.

I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.

===============

Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.

The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.

Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passι.

Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate the world economy.

Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.

The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.

slimycorporated...

Capitalism requires banks that made shitty loans to fail

Ms No

The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark. The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.

I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to know with the corruption we have.

Good times.

o r c k

And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve". "The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality, foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".

Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.

[Dec 05, 2016] New Class War

This is a very weak article from a prominent paleoconservative, but it is instructive what a mess he has in his head as for the nature of Trump phenomenon. We should probably consider the tern "New Class" that neocons invented as synonym for "neoliberals". If so, why the author is afraid to use the term? Does he really so poorly educated not to understand the nature of this neoliberal revolution and its implications? Looks like he never read "Quite coup"
That probably reflects the crisis of pealeoconservatism itself.
Notable quotes:
"... What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. ..."
"... the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration, while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus. ..."
"... The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is this class, effectively the ruling class of the country? ..."
"... The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed, was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists. ..."
"... The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined. ..."
"... Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction. ..."
"... concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class." ..."
"... It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy, and so on. ..."
"... I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom? ..."
"... Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation. ..."
"... Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class. ..."
"... Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment to free-market principles ..."
"... The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service. ..."
"... America's class war, like many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites. ..."
"... Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November. ..."
"... The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. ..."
"... Marx taught that you identify classes by their structural role in the system of production. I'm at a loss to see how either of the 'classes' you mention here relate to the system of production. ..."
"... [New] Class better describes the Never Trumpers. Mostly I have found them to be those involved in knowledge occupations (conservative think tanks, hedge fund managers, etc.) who have a pecuniary interest in maintaining the Global Economy as opposed to the Virtuous Intergenerational Economy that preceded. Many are dependent on funding sources for their livelihoods that are connected to the Globalized Economy and financial markets. ..."
"... "mobilize working-class voters against the establishment in both parties. " = workers of the world unite. ..."
"... Where the class conflict between the Working and Knowledge Classes begins is where the Knowledge Class almost unilaterally decided to shift to a global economy, at the expense of the Working Class, and to the self-benefit of the Knowledge Class. Those who designed the Global Economy like Larry Summers of Harvard did not invite private or public labor to help design the new Globalist Economy. The Working Class lost out big time in job losses and getting stuck with subprime home loans that busted their marriages and created bankruptcies and foreclosures. The Knowledge Class was mostly unscathed by this class-based economic divide. ..."
"... Trump's distinguishing ideology, which separates him from the current elite, is something he has summed up many times – nationalism vs. Globalism. ..."
"... The financial industry, the new tech giants, the health insurance industry are now almost indistinguishable from the government ruling elite. The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America. Both are right in a sense. ..."
"... The hyperconcentration of power in Washington and a few tributary locations like Wall Street and Silicon Valley, elite academia and the media–call that the New Class if you like–means that most of America–Main Street, the flyover country has been left behind. Trump instinctively – brilliantly in some ways – tapped into the resentment that this hyperconcentration of wealth and government power has led to. That is why it cuts across right and left. The elites want to characterize this resentment as backwards and "racist," but there is also something very American from Jefferson to Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt that revolts against being lectured to and controlled by their would-be "betters." ..."
"... The alienation of those left out is real and based on real erosion of the middle class and American dream under both parties' elites. The potentially revolutionary capabilities of a political movement that could unite right and left in restoring some equilibrium and opportunities to those left out is tremendous, but yet to be realized by either major party. The party that can harness these folks – who are after all the majority of Americans – will have a ruling coalition for decades. If neither party can productively harness this budding movement, we are headed for disarray, civil unrest, and potentially the dissolution of the USA. ..."
"... . And blacks who cleave to the democrats despite being sold down the tubes on issues, well, for whatever reason, they just have thinner skin and the mistaken idea that the democrats deliver – thanks to Pres. Johnson. But what Pres. Johnson delivered democrats made a mockery of immediately as they stripped it of its intent and used for their own liberal ends. ..."
"... Let's see if I can help Dreher clear up some confusion in his article. James Burnham's "Managerial Class" and the "New Class" are overlapping and not exclusive. By the Managerial Class Burnham meant both the executive and managers in the private sector and the Bureaucrats and functionaries in the public sector. ..."
"... The rise of managers was a "revolution" because of the rise of modernization which meant the increasing mechanization, industrialization, formalization and rationalization (efficiency) of society. Burnham's concern about the rise of the managerial revolution was misplaced; what he should have focused on was modernization. ..."
"... The old left–represented by Sanders–rails against this as big money coopting government, even while conservatives are exasperated by the unholy cabal of big business and big government in cohoots in the "progressive" remake of America ..."
"... . Some 3 – 5% of the population facing no real opposition has decided that that their private lives needed public endorsement and have proceeded to upend the entire social order - the game has shifted in ways I am not sure most of the public fully grasps or desires ..."
"... There has always been and will always be class conflict, even if it falls short of a war. Simply examining recent past circumstances, the wealthy class has been whooping up on all other classes. This is not to suggest any sort of remedy, but simply to observe that income disparity over the past 30 years has substantially benefitted on sector of class and political power remains in their hands today. To think that there will never be class conflict is to side with a Marxian fantasy of egalitarianism, which will never come to pass. Winners and losers may change positions, but the underlying conflict will always remain. ..."
"... State governments have been kowtowing to big business interests for a good long while. Nothing new under the sun there. Back in the 80s when GM was deciding where to site their factory for the new Saturn car line, they issued an edict stating they would only consider states that had mandatory seat belt use laws, and the states in the running fell all over each to enact those. ..."
"... People don't really care for the actions of the elite but they care for the consequences of these actions. During the 1960's, per capita GDP growth was around 3.5%. Today it stands at 0,49%. If you take into account inflation, it's negative. Add to this the skewed repartition of said growth and it's intuitive that many people feel the pain; whom doesn't move forward, goes backwards. ..."
"... People couldn't care for mass immigration, nation building or the emergence of China if their personal situation was not impacted. But now, they begin to feel the results of these actions. ..."
"... I have a simple philosophy regarding American politics that shows who is made of what, and we don't have to go through all the philosophizing in this article: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... Re: Anyone who believes in same sex marriage has been brainwashed and is un-American and unreliable. Anyone who puts Israeli interests above America's is un-American. ..."
"... The first has nothing whatsoever to do with American citizenship. It's just a political issue– on which, yes, reasonable people can differ. However no American citizen should put the interests of any other country ahead of our own, except in a situation where the US was itself up to no good and deserved its comeuppance. And then the interest is not that of any particular nation, but of justice being done period. ..."
"... A lot of this "New Class" stuff is just confusing mis-mash of this and that theory. Basically, America changed when the US dollar replace gold as the medium of exchange in the world economy. Remember when we called it the PETRO-DOLLAR. As long as the Saudis only accepted the US dollar as the medium of exchange for oil, then the American government could export it's inflation and deficit spending. Budget deficits and trade deficits are intrinsically related. It allowed America to become a nation of consumers instead of a nation of producers. ..."
"... It's really a form of classic IMPERIALISM. To maintain this system, we've got the US military and we prop up the corrupt dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya ..."
"... Yeah, you can talk about the "new class", the corruption of the banking system by the idiotic "libertarian" or "free market utopianism" of the Gingrich Congress, the transformation of American corporations to international corporations, and on and on. But it's the US dollar as reserve currency that has allowed it all to happen. God help us, if it ends, we'll be crippled. ..."
"... The Clinton Class mocks The Country Class: Bill Clinton, "We all know how her opponent's done real well down in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Because the coal people don't like any of us anymore." "They blame the president when the sun doesn't come up in the morning now," ..."
"... That doesn't mean they actually support Hillary's policies and position. What do they really know about either? These demographics simply vote overwhelmingly Democrat no matter who is on the ticket. If Alfred E. Newman were the candidate, this particular data point would look just the same. ..."
"... "On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests." This doesn't ring true. Hard industry, and the managers that run it had no problem with moving jobs and factories overseas in pursuit of cheaper labor. Plus, it solved their Union issues. I feel like the divide is between large corporations, with dilute ownership and professional managers who nominally serve the interests of stock fund managers, while greatly enriching themselves versus a multitude of smaller, locally owned businesses whose owners were also concerned with the health of the local communities in which they lived. ..."
"... The financial elites are a consequence of consolidation in the banking and finance industry, where we now have 4 or 5 large institutions versus a multitude of local and regional banks that were locally focused. ..."
Sep 07, 2016 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Since the Cold War ended, U.S. politics has seen a series of insurgent candidacies. Pat Buchanan prefigured Trump in the Republican contests of 1992 and 1996. Ralph Nader challenged the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party from the outside in 2000. Ron Paul vexed establishment Republicans John McCain and Mitt Romney in 2008 and 2012. And this year, Trump was not the only candidate to confound his party's elite: Bernie Sanders harried Hillary Clinton right up to the Democratic convention.

What do these insurgents have in common? All have called into question the interventionist consensus in foreign policy. All have opposed large-scale free-trade agreements. (The libertarian Paul favors unilateral free trade: by his lights, treaties like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership are not free trade at all but international regulatory pacts.) And while no one would mistake Ralph Nader's or Ron Paul's views on immigration for Pat Buchanan's or Donald Trump's, Nader and Paul have registered their own dissents from the approach to immigration that prevails in Washington.

Sanders has been more in line with his party's orthodoxy on that issue. But that didn't save him from being attacked by Clinton backers for having an insufficiently nonwhite base of support. Once again, what might have appeared to be a class conflict-in this case between a democratic socialist and an elite liberal with ties to high finance-could be explained away as really about race.

Race, like religion, is a real factor in how people vote. Its relevance to elite politics, however, is less clear. Something else has to account for why the establishment in both parties almost uniformly favors one approach to war, trade, and immigration, while outsider candidates as dissimilar as Buchanan, Nader, Paul, and Trump, and to a lesser extent Sanders, depart from the consensus.

The insurgents clearly do not represent a single class: they appeal to eclectic interests and groups. The foe they have all faced down, however-the bipartisan establishment-does resemble a class in its striking unity of outlook and interest. So what is this class, effectively the ruling class of the country?

Some critics on the right have identified it with the "managerial" class described by James Burnham in his 1941 book The Managerial Revolution . But it bears a stronger resemblance to what what others have called "the New Class." In fact, the interests of this New Class of college-educated "verbalists" are antithetical to those of the industrial managers that Burnham described. Understanding the relationship between these two often conflated concepts provides insight into politics today, which can be seen as a clash between managerial and New Class elites.

♦♦♦

The archetypal model of class conflict, the one associated with Karl Marx, pits capitalists against workers-or, at an earlier stage, capitalists against the landed nobility. The capitalists' victory over the nobility was inevitable, and so too, Marx believed, was the coming triumph of the workers over the capitalists.

Over the next century, however, history did not follow the script. By 1992, the Soviet Union was gone, Communist China had embarked on market reforms, and Western Europe was turning away from democratic socialism. There was no need to predict the future; mankind had achieved its destiny, a universal order of [neo]liberal democracy. Marx had it backwards: capitalism was the end of history.

But was the truth as simple as that? Long before the collapse of the USSR, many former communists -- some of whom remained socialists, while others joined the right-thought not. The Soviet Union had never been a workers' state at all, they argued, but was run by a class of apparatchiks such as Marx had never imagined.

Among the first to advance this argument was James Burnham, a professor of philosophy at New York University who became a leading Trotskyist thinker. As he broke with Trotsky and began moving toward the right, Burnham recognized affinities between the Soviet mode of organization-in which much real power lay in the hands of the commissars who controlled industry and the bureaucratic organs of the state-and the corporatism that characterized fascist states. Even the U.S., under the New Deal and with ongoing changes to the balance between ownership and management in the private sector, seemed to be moving in the same direction.

Burnham called this the "managerial revolution." The managers of industry and technically trained government officials did not own the means of production, like the capitalists of old. But they did control the means of production, thanks to their expertise and administrative prowess.

The rise of this managerial class would have far-reaching consequences, he predicted. Burnham wrote in his 1943 book, The Machiavellians : "that the managers may function, the economic and political structure must be modified, as it is now being modified, so as to rest no longer on private ownership and small-scale nationalist sovereignty, but primarily upon state control of the economy, and continental or vast regional world political organization." Burnham pointed to Nazi Germany, imperial Japan-which became a "continental" power by annexing Korea and Manchuria-and the Soviet Union as examples.

The defeat of the Axis powers did not halt the progress of the managerial revolution. Far from it: not only did the Soviets retain their form of managerialism, but the West increasingly adopted a managerial corporatism of its own, marked by cooperation between big business and big government: high-tech industrial crony capitalism, of the sort that characterizes the military-industrial complex to this day. (Not for nothing was Burnham a great advocate of America's developing a supersonic transport of its own to compete with the French-British Concorde.)

America's managerial class was personified by Robert S. McNamara, the former Ford Motor Company executive who was secretary of defense under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. In a 1966 story for National Review , "Why Do They Hate Robert Strange McNamara?" Burnham answered the question in class terms: "McNamara is attacked by the Left because the Left has a blanket hatred of the system of business enterprise; he is criticized by the Right because the Right harks back, in nostalgia if not in practice, to outmoded forms of business enterprise."

McNamara the managerial technocrat was too business-oriented for a left that still dreamed of bringing the workers to power. But the modern form of industrial organization he represented was not traditionally capitalist enough for conservatives who were at heart 19th-century classical liberals.

National Review readers responded to Burnham's paean to McNamara with a mixture of incomprehension and indignation. It was a sign that even readers familiar with Burnham-he appeared in every issue of the magazine-did not always follow what he was saying. The popular right wanted concepts that were helpful in labeling enemies, and Burnham was confusing matters by talking about changes in the organization of government and industry that did not line up with anyone's value judgements.

More polemically useful was a different concept popularized by neoconservatives in the following decade: the "New Class." "This 'new class' is not easily defined but may be vaguely described," Irving Kristol wrote in a 1975 essay for the Wall Street Journal :

It consists of a goodly proportion of those college-educated people whose skills and vocations proliferate in a 'post-industrial society' (to use Daniel Bell's convenient term). We are talking about scientists, teachers, and educational administrators, journalists and others in the communication industries, psychologists, social workers, those lawyers and doctors who make their careers in the expanding public sector, city planners, the staffs of the larger foundations, the upper levels of the government bureaucracy, and so on.

"Members of the new class do not 'control' the media," he continued, "they are the media-just as they are our educational system, our public health and welfare system, and much else."

Burnham, writing in National Review in 1978, drew a sharp contrast between this concept and his own ideas:

I have felt that this 'new class' is, so far, rather thin gruel. Intellectuals, verbalists, media types, etc. are conspicuous actors these days, certainly; they make a lot of noise, get a lot of attention, and some of them make a lot of money. But, after all, they are a harum-scarum crowd, and deflate even more quickly than they puff up. On TV they can out-talk any of the managers of ITT, GM, or IBM, or the administration-managers of the great government bureaus and agencies, but, honestly, you're not going to take that as a power test. Who hires and fires whom?

Burnham suffered a stroke later that year. Although he lived until 1987, his career as a writer was over. His last years coincided with another great transformation of business and government. It began in the Carter administration, with moves to deregulate transportation and telecommunications. This partial unwinding of the managerial revolution accelerated under Ronald Reagan. Regulatory and welfare-state reforms, even privatization of formerly nationalized industries, also took off in the UK and Western Europe. All this did not, however, amount to a restoration of the old capitalism or anything resembling laissez-faire.

The "[neo]liberal democracy" that triumphed at "the end of history"-to use Francis Fukuyama's words-was not the managerial capitalism of the mid-20th century, either. It was instead the New Class's form of capitalism, one that could be embraced by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair as readily as by any Republican or Thatcherite.

Irving Kristol had already noted in the 1970s that "this new class is not merely liberal but truly 'libertarian' in its approach to all areas of life-except economics. It celebrates individual liberty of speech and expression and action to an unprecedented degree, so that at times it seems almost anarchistic in its conception of the good life."

He was right about the New Class's "anything goes" mentality, but he was only partly correct about its attitude toward economics. The young elite tended to scorn the bourgeois character of the old capitalism, and to them managerial figures like McNamara were evil incarnate. But they had to get by-and they aspired to rule.

Burnham had observed that the New Class did not have the means-either money or manpower-to wield power the way the managers or the capitalists of old did. It had to borrow power from other classes. Discovering where the New Class gets it is as easy as following the money, which leads straight to the finance sector-practically to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs. Jerry Rubin's journey from Yippie to yuppie was the paradigm of a generation.

Part of the tale can be told in a favorable light. New Left activists like Carl Oglesby fought the spiritual aridity and murderous militarism of what they called "corporate liberalism"-Burnham's managerialism-while sincere young libertarians attacked the regulatory state and seeded technological entrepreneurship. Yet the New Class as a whole is less like Carl Oglesby or Karl Hess than like Hillary Clinton, who arguably embodies it as perfectly as McNamara did the managerial class.

Even the New Class's support for deregulation-to the advantage of its allies on Wall Street-was no sign of consistent commitment to free-market principles. On the contrary, the New Class favors new kinds of crony finance capitalism, even as it opposes the protectionism that would benefit hard industry and managerial interests. The individual-mandate feature of Obamacare and Romneycare is a prime example of New Class cronyism: government compels individuals to buy a supposedly private product or service.

The alliance between finance and the New Class accounts for the disposition of power in America today. The New Class has also enlisted another invaluable ally: the managerial classes of East Asia. Trade with China-the modern managerial state par excellence-helps keep American industry weak relative to finance and the service economy's verbalist-dominated sectors. America's class war, like many others, is not in the end a contest between up and down. It's a fight between rival elites: in this case, between the declining managerial elite and the triumphant (for now) New Class and financial elites.

The New Class plays a priestly role in its alliance with finance, absolving Wall Street for the sin of making money in exchange for plenty of that money to keep the New Class in power. In command of foreign policy, the New Class gets to pursue humanitarian ideological projects-to experiment on the world. It gets to evangelize by the sword. And with trade policy, it gets to suppress its class rival, the managerial elite, at home. Through trade pacts and mass immigration the financial elite, meanwhile, gets to maximize its returns without regard for borders or citizenship. The erosion of other nations' sovereignty that accompanies American hegemony helps toward that end too-though our wars are more ideological than interest-driven.

♦♦♦

So we come to an historic moment. Instead of an election pitting another Bush against another Clinton, we have a race that poses stark alternatives: a choice not only between candidates but between classes-not only between administrations but between regimes.

Donald Trump is not of the managerial class himself. But by embracing managerial interests-industrial protection and, yes, "big government"-and combining them with nationalistic identity politics, he has built a force that has potential to threaten the bipartisan establishment, even if he goes down to defeat in November.

The New Class, after all, lacks a popular base as well as money of its own, and just as it relies on Wall Street to underwrite its power, it depends on its competing brands of identity politics to co-opt popular support. For the center-left establishment, minority voters supply the electoral muscle. Religion and the culture war have served the same purpose for the establishment's center-right faction. Trump showed that at least one of these sides could be beaten on its own turf-and it seems conceivable that if Bernie Sanders had been black, he might have similarly beaten Clinton, without having to make concessions to New Class tastes.

The New Class establishment of both parties may be seriously misjudging what is happening here. Far from being the last gasp of the demographically doomed-old, racially isolated white people, as Gallup's analysis says-Trump's insurgency may be the prototype of an aggressive new politics, of either left or right, that could restore the managerial elite to power.

This is not something that conservatives-or libertarians who admire the old capitalism rather than New Class's simulacrum-might welcome. But the only way that some entrenched policies may change is with a change of the class in power.

Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative .

[Dec 05, 2016] Capitalism Requires World War by Cathal Haughian via TheSaker.ie,

www.zerohedge.com

It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.

The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.

The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923 with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.

The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.

The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s – all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).

Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market – say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).

One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.

As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.

Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest rates.

Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally, due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative. How has the system remained stable for so long?

All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.

US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006. And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)

What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of gold for dollars was revoked.

GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power to Saudi Arabia.

The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.

Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it consumed.

The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited life raised the rate of profit!

They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.

Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency. The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971 because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.

The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.

The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop to the robbery.

In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.

Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale solutions, which are intertwined .

One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of labour to the present dominant class.

The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."

Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits after WW2.

Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs, i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.

The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:

If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47 million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.

The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies, trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.

Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.

Uncle Sugar

Seriously - Having a Central Bank with a debt based monetary system requires permanent wars. True market based capitalism does not.

Father Thyme

Your logical fallacy is no true scotsman
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

Wed, 03/02/2016 - 23:21 | 7264475 Seek_Truth

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

If wealth were measured by creating strawmen- you would be a Rothschild.

gwiss

That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."

Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion to each other is another example.

Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system. However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than a fine simmer.

The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world war, which is why we are going to have one.

Wed, 03/02/2016 - 23:27 | 7264485 GRDguy

Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."

AchtungAffen

Really? I thought that was the re-prints of Mises Canada, Kunstler or Brandon Smith. In comparison, this article is sublime.

Caviar Emptor

Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.

Wed, 03/02/2016 - 22:56 | 7264423 Jack's Raging B...

That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.

So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.

My Days Are Get...

From Russia News Feed:

Cathal Haughian Bio :

I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families. I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.

I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.

===============

Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.

The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.

Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passι.

Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate the world economy.

Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.

The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.

slimycorporated...

Capitalism requires banks that made shitty loans to fail

Ms No

The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark. The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.

I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to know with the corruption we have.

Good times.

o r c k

And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve". "The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality, foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".

Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.

[Dec 05, 2016] Spanish civil war nostalgics join fight alongside Ukrainian rebels by Kazbek Basayev

Notable quotes:
"... That star and a ribbon around Munez's wrist hint at the Spaniards' motivation for joining a war thousands of miles from home. The ribbon's red, yellow and purple are the colors of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict in the 1930s where thousands of foreigners joined the leftists against right-wing foes who eventually prevailed. ..."
"... More than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine since mid-April, according to the United Nations, in a civil conflict that has dragged ties between Russia and the West to their lowest since the Cold War. ..."
"... Davilla-Rivas blamed the West - which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, accusing it of backing the rebels - for stoking the war. "The United States is trying to provoke a third (world war) against Russia here with your people," he said. "Ordinary people are suffering because they are caught in between three imperial powers - the Russian Federation, the European Union and, certainly, the United States, which is putting money into all this." ..."
"... Civil war in Ukraine is going more then 4 months. 30 000 Ukrainians was killed, and 1 million expelled from their homes. ..."
"... Volunteers, revolutionaries, zealots, idealist, mercenaries are all drawn to conflicts all over the globe. ..."
Aug 08, 2014 | Yahoo/Reuters

Angel Davilla-Rivas, a Spaniard who came to east Ukraine to fight alongside pro-Russian rebels, proudly shows off two big monochrome portraits of Soviet leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin, tattooed on the right and left side of his torso.

Davilla-Rivas and his comrade Rafa Munez, both in their mid-twenties, traveled by train from Madrid to eastern Ukraine where they joined the Vostok battalion, the most prominent and heavily armed unit fighting Ukrainian troops.

"I am the only son, and it hurts my mother and father and my family a lot that I am putting myself at risk. But ... I can't sleep in my bed knowing what's going on here," said Davilla-Rivas, sporting a cap with the Soviet red star pinned to it.

That star and a ribbon around Munez's wrist hint at the Spaniards' motivation for joining a war thousands of miles from home. The ribbon's red, yellow and purple are the colors of the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, a conflict in the 1930s where thousands of foreigners joined the leftists against right-wing foes who eventually prevailed.

Angel said he wanted to return the favor after the Soviet Union, under Stalin, supported the Republican side in Spain.

More than 1,100 people have been killed in the fighting in Ukraine since mid-April, according to the United Nations, in a civil conflict that has dragged ties between Russia and the West to their lowest since the Cold War.

The Spaniards are not the first foreigners to enter the fight.

Men from Russia, its former rebel republic of Chechnya and the Caucasus region of North Ossetia have fought on the rebel side along with volunteers from a Russian-backed separatist enclave of Georgia and natives of Serbia.

Russians have also taken top positions among the rebels, though a local took over at the helm of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk Peoples' Republic" on Thursday, in a move aimed at blunting Western accusations the rebellion is run by Moscow.

Moscow said last month there were reports that citizens from Sweden, Finland, France and the former Soviet Baltic states had joined pro-Kiev volunteer battalions in the east as "mercenaries".

Davilla-Rivas blamed the West - which has imposed sanctions on Moscow, accusing it of backing the rebels - for stoking the war. "The United States is trying to provoke a third (world war) against Russia here with your people," he said. "Ordinary people are suffering because they are caught in between three imperial powers - the Russian Federation, the European Union and, certainly, the United States, which is putting money into all this."

A Vostok fighter said he was happy to have the Spaniards. "We need support now, we need fighters. An additional automatic gun will do no harm, to support, to cover one's back," said the young, brown-haired man who did not give his name. The Spanish embassy in Moscow was not immediately available for comment.

(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

blazo 6 months ago

Civil war in Ukraine is going more then 4 months. 30 000 Ukrainians was killed, and 1 million expelled from their homes. Not too bad for only 4 months. But it could be better.

Commander in chief of glorious Kiev army, Mr Porkoshenko, and his sponsor in killings and expulsions, Mr Obama are not satisfied. For money spent, much higher pace of killing should be #$%$ured. What is their reference? In Babin Yar during WW 2, 1200 Ukrainian #$%$, with help of 300 Germans, managed to kill 60 000 Ukrainians for only two days. So Mr Porkoshenko ask from Chef of all Ukrainian security forces, Mr Paruby to explain discrepancy in efficiency in Babin Yar, and in Donbas killings. Mr Paruby said: In Babin Yar Ukrainians to be killed were civilized and unarmed. They even smiled for photographs during killing. But in Donbas they are barbaric armed people, they don t allow us to kill them in peace. They turned arms on us, and killed 10 000 of our brave soldiers. They burned our tanks, APCs, and shot down our jet bombers. And as a extreme barbarism, they captured from us multiple rocket launchers, and fired on us, killing our 25th, 72nd, 79th motorized brigades. Mr Porkoshenko said: You are fired, and kicked him with foot to his #$%$.

The great strategist and visionary, Mr Porkoshenko said on 25th of May: It is not a question of days, weeks, or months, when rebellion in East Ukraine will be defeated. It is the question of hours.... .

Ricardo 6 months ago

Volunteers, revolutionaries, zealots, idealist, mercenaries are all drawn to conflicts all over the globe. Muslims are headed to Syria and Iraq from Europe and North Africa to fight either Assad or along side ISIS, now those that believe the days of the old USSR are returning are headed to eastern Ukraine to fight. If you look at some of the countries mentioned in this article it will not surprise anyone that they are all from Soviet/Russian supported countries that even after the collapse of the USSR still follow the Russians, no matter the consequences to their country.

[Dec 04, 2016] Nuclear war our likely future as Russia China would not accept US hegemony, Reagan official warns

Notable quotes:
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
May 13, 2015 | RT News
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the "world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.

The former US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his blog that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."

Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."

The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance."

Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."

"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.

He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future."

Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.

A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents – 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.

"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."

The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate and alienate Russia.

Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'"

The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"

While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.

Read more Perverted history: Europeans think US army liberated continent during WW2

Read more US mulls sending military ships, aircraft near South China Sea disputed islands – report

[Dec 04, 2016] Nuclear war our likely future as Russia China would not accept US hegemony, Reagan official warns

Notable quotes:
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
May 13, 2015 | RT News
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the "world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.

The former US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his blog that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."

Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."

The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance."

Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."

"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.

He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future."

Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.

A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents – 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.

"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."

The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate and alienate Russia.

Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'"

The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"

While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.

Read more Perverted history: Europeans think US army liberated continent during WW2

Read more US mulls sending military ships, aircraft near South China Sea disputed islands – report

[Nov 23, 2016] Ron Paul: Shadow Government May Pull False Flag To Get Trump Into War

www.infowars.com
Former Congressman and Libertarian icon Ron Paul has warned that 'shadow government' neocons could orchestrate a 'false flag' incident in order to drag new president Donald Trump into a fresh war.

"I don't how anybody can say they know what is going to happen," Paul told The Daily Caller, referring to Trump's foreign policy.

"All we need is a false flag and an accident and everybody will be for teaching them a lesson," Paul said, warning that such an event could trigger new foreign entanglement.

"The neocons always talked about it before 9/11 they kept saying, 'we aren't going to get our program in until we have a Pearl Harbor event,'" the former congressman stated, stopping short of saying he believes those attacks were staged.

"I think other countries could use false flags." Paul also added.

Paul also warned that a shadow government will continue to operate when Trump is president, just as it did during Obama's time in office.

"Obama probably was much more attune to a different foreign policy of less aggression but why then does he do it?" Paul said.

"I think there's the shadow government, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and all the things that can be done because they just melt away and they do exactly what the establishment says." the former Congressman added.

Paul warned that those within the shadow government are seeking to influence Trump now.

"He's very friendly with a lot of them right now, he's talking to them," Paul said, adding that "We don't have a final answer, we have to wait to see who get's appointed."

"He doesn't talk about blowback and coming out of these countries. He has a better policy with Russia but I think he still is talking with the neoconservatives." Paul also stated.

"The deep state is very very powerful and they have a lot of control," Paul said, adding "That is one of my big issues about how shadow government is so powerful in all administrations."

Earlier this month, Paul issued the same warnings, saying that neocons and shadow government figures are going to attempt to infiltrate and influence Trump's presidency and prevent him from achieving successful change.

[Nov 20, 2016] The Field of Fight How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies by Michael T. Flynn, Michael Ledeen

Trump essentially betrayed Flynn, who tried to did the billing of Kushner and persuade Russia to abstain from anti-Israel vote.
Notable quotes:
"... The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts' conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western universities. ..."
"... There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. ..."
"... General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept. ..."
"... in contrast to what his detractors might opine, General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion itself. ..."
"... The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true. ..."
"... My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence. ..."
"... I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations that he discusses in his book. ..."
"... Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals and reactionaries of political Islam. ..."
"... One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics," whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam." ..."
Nov 20, 2016 | www.amazon.com

SomeRandomGuy July 17, 2016

We're at war, but few people know it... or are willing to accept it.

When I had heard in the news that Lt Gen Flynn might be chosen by Donald Trump as his Vice Presidential nominee, I was quick to do some research on Flynn and came across this work. Having worked in the intelligence community myself in the past several years, I was intrigued to hear what the previous director of the DIA had to say. I have read many books on the topic of Islam and I am glad I picked this up.

The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts' conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western universities.

If you have formed your opinion of Islam and the nature of the West's fight in the Middle East on solely what you hear in the main steam media (all sides), you would do well to read this book as a starting point into self-education on an incredibly complex topic.

There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. Usually this political opining in a work such as this is distracting, but it does add much-needed context to decisions and events. That said, Lt Gen Flynn did a great job addressing a complex topic in plain language. While this is not a seminal work on

Amazon Customer on November 11, 2016

A critically important work for western civilization.

General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept.

He supports what he can tell us with citations. Radical Islam has declared war on Western democracies, most of all on the US. Its allies include Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and others. Their war against us is a long-term effort, and our politicians (except Trump?) don't want to hear it. We need to demand that our politicos prepare for this assault and start taking wise, strong steps to defeat it.

Western Europe may already have been fatally infiltrated by "refugees" who will seek to Islamize it, and current birth rates suggest that those nations will have Muslim majorities in 20 years. General Flynn details what we must do to survive the assault. I bought the Kindle version and began reading it, but then paid more for the audible version so that I could get through it faster. Please buy and read this book!

David Firester on September 2, 2016

Looking Inward First, is What Generates the Strategy-Shifting Process. Flynn Gets This. Few Others Do.

To begin with, I will say that the book is not exactly what one might expect from a recently retired General. For starters, there were numerous spelling errors, an assortment of colloquialisms and some instances in which the prose took on a decidedly partisan tone. The means of documenting sources was something akin to a blog-posting, in that he simply copied and pasted links to pages, right into the body of the work. I would have liked to have seen a more thoroughly researched and properly cited work. All of this was likely due to the fact that General Flynn released his book in the days leading up to Donald J. Trump's announcement of his Vice Presidential pick. As Flynn is apparently a close national security advisor to Trump, I can understand why his work appears to be somewhat harried. Nonetheless, I think that the book's timeliness is useful, as the information it contains might be helpful in guiding Americans' election choices. I also think that despite the absence of academic rigor, it makes his work more accessible. No doubt, this is probably one of Mr. Trump's qualities and one that has catapulted him to national fame and serious consideration for the office he seeks. General Flynn makes a number of important points, which, despite my foregoing adverse commentary, gives me the opportunity to endorse it as an essential read.

In the introductory chapter, General Flynn lays out his credentials, defines the problem, and proceeds to inform the reader of the politically guided element that clouds policy prescriptions. Indeed, he is correct to call attention to the fact that the Obama administration has deliberately exercised its commanding authority in forbidding the attachment of the term "Islam" when speaking of the threat posed by extremists who advocate and carry out violence in the religion's name. As one who suffered at the hands of the administration for speaking truth to power, he knows all too well what others in the Intelligence Community (IC) must suffer in order to hold onto their careers.

In chapter one, he discusses where he came from and how he learned valuable lessons at home and in service to his country. He also gives the reader a sense of the geopolitical context in which Radical Islamists have been able to form alliances with our worst enemies. This chapter also introduces the reader to some of his personal military heroes, as he delineates how their mentorship shaped his thinking on military and intelligence matters. A key lesson to pay attention to in this chapter is what some, including General Flynn, call 'politicization of intelligence.' Although he maintains that both the present and previous administration have been guilty of this, he credits the Bush administration with its strategic reconsideration of the material facts and a search for better answers. (He mentions this again in the next chapter on p.42, signifying this capability as a "leadership characteristic" and later recalls the president's "insight and courage" on p. 154.)

Chapter two of The Field of Fight features an excellent summary of what transpires in a civil war and the manner in which Iraqis began to defect from al-Qa'ida and cooperate with U.S. forces. In this task, he explains for the layperson what many scholars do, but in far fewer pages. Again, this makes his work more accessible. He also works through the process of intelligence failures that are, in his opinion, produced by a superordinate policy failure housed in the upper echelons of the military structure. In essence, it was a misperception (willful or not) that guided thinking about the cause of the insurgency, that forbade an ability to properly address it with a population-centric Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. He pays homage to the adaptability and ingenuity of General Stanley McChrystal's Task Force 714, but again mentions the primary barrier to its success was bureaucratic in nature.

The main thrust of chapter 3, aptly named "The Enemy Alliance," is geared toward tying together the earlier assertion in chapter regarding the synergy between state actors like Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the like. It has been documented elsewhere, but the Iranian (non-Arab Shi'a) connection to the al-Qa'ida (Arab Sunni) terrorist organization can't be denied. Flynn correctly points out how the relationship between strange bedfellows is not new in the Middle East. He briefly discusses how this has been the case since the 1970s, with specific reference to the PLO, Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, Bosnia and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's. He also references President Obama's "curious sympathy" (p. 92) for enemies in places such as Venezuela and Cuba.

General Flynn then reminds readers of some facts that have either been forgotten, or virtually unknown, by most Americans. Namely, the role that Saddam Hussein actually played with regard to the recruitment of foreign terrorists, the internal policies of appeasement for Islamists in his army and the support he lent to Islamists in other countries (e.g., Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan). He also reminds the readers of the totalitarian mindset that consumes Islamist groups, such as al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State. All the while, and in contrast to what his detractors might opine, General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion itself. This chapter is perhaps the most robust in the book and it is the sort of reading that every American should do before they engage in conversations about the nature of political Islam.

Chapter four is a blueprint for winning what used to be called the 'global war on terror.' Although such a phraseology is generally laughed at in many policy circles, it is clear, as General Flynn demonstrates, that some groups and countries are locked in combat with us and our partners in the West. Yet, as he correctly points out, the Obama administration isn't willing to use global American leadership in order to defeat those who see us, and treat us, as their collective enemy. General Flynn's prescription includes four strategic objectives, which I won't recite here, as I'm not looking to violate any copyright laws. The essence of his suggestions, however, starts with an admission of who the enemy is, a commitment to their destruction, the abandonment of any unholy alliances we have made over the years, and a counter-ideological program for combating what is largely an ideologically-based enemy strong suit. He points to some of the facts that describe the dismal state of affairs in the Arab world, the most damning of which appear on pages 127-128, and then says what many are afraid to say on page 133: "Radical Islam is a totalitarian political ideology wrapped in the Islamic religion." Nonetheless, Flynn discusses some of the more mundane and pecuniary sources of their strength and the means that might be tried in an effort to undermine them.

The concluding chapter of General Flynn's work draws the reader's attention to some of the works of others that have been overlooked. He then speaks candidly of the misguided assumptions that, coupled with political and bureaucratic reasons, slows adaptation to the changing threat environment. Indeed, one of the reasons that I found this book so refreshing is because that sort of bold introspection is perhaps the requisite starting point for re-thinking bad strategies. In fact, that is the essence of both the academic and practical work that I have been doing for years. I highly recommend this book, especially chapter 3, for any student of the IC and the military sciences.

Bob Baker on August 4, 2016
It's ironic that the general wrote about Pattern Analysis, ...

It's ironic that the general wrote about Pattern Analysis, when DIA in late-1971 warned that the Ho Chi Minh Trail was unusually active using this technique.

The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true.

My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence.

Amazon Customer on August 1, 2016
A GREAT BOOK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE WAR ON TERROR

At a time when so much is hanging in the balance, General Flynn's book plainly lays out a strategy for not only fighting ISIS/ISIL but also for preventing totalitarianism from spreading with Russia, North Korea and Cuba now asserting themselves - again.

Sadly, because there is some mild rebuke towards President Obama, my fear is people who should read this book to gain a better understanding of the mind of the jihadist won't because they don't like their president being called out for inadequate leadership. But the fact remains we are at war with not just one, but several ideologies that have a common enemy - US! But this book is not about placing blame, it is about winning and what it will take to defeat the enemies of freedom.

We take freedom for granted in the West, to the point where, unlike our enemies, we are no longer willing to fight hard to preserve those freedoms. General Flynn makes the complicated theatre of fighting Radical Islam easier to understand. His experience in explaining how we can and have won on the battlefield gives me great comfort, but also inspires me to want to help fight for the good cause of freedom.

My sincerest hope is that both Trump and Clinton will read this book and then appoint General Flynn as our next Defense Secretary!

Amazon Customer DCC on July 30, 2016
recommend you read " Heretic

I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations that he discusses in his book. All of the radical fighting that has taken place in the world, ever since the beginning evolution of the Islamic religion over 1400 years ago, has revolved around radical interpretations of the Qur'an.

Until there is an Islamic religious reformation, there will never be a lasting resolution to the current "Radical Islamic Terrorist" problem. It is a religious ideology interpretation issue. Until that interpretation is resolved within the Islamic world, there will always be continuing radical interpretation outbreaks, from within the entire Islamic world, against all other forms of non-Islamic religions and their evolving cultures.

If you require further insight, recommend you read " Heretic, Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now" , by Ayaan Hirisi Ali. DCC

Aaron Rudroff on July 26, 2016
To be continued...

Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals and reactionaries of political Islam.

One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics," whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam."

As if there is any relationship to relationship to Islam other than it is the predominant religion in a majority of the area where they commit their criminal activity. As if the political war with terrorist is a function of a label that is of itself a oversimplification of the issues. Indeed, suggesting it is a nothing more than 'political correctness" and ignoring the possibility that it might be a function of setting the conditions in an otherwise polygon of political justice. This argument alone is evidence of the his willingness to develop domestic political will for war with a simple argument. Nevertheless, as a national strategy, it lacks the a foundational argument to motivate friendly regional actors who's authority is founded on political Islam.

In 2008 a national election was held and the pyrrhic nature of the war in Iraq adjudicated via the process of democratic choice that ended support for continued large scale conventional occupation. That there is some new will to continue large scale conventional occupation seems unlikely, and as a democratic country, leaders must find other means to reach the desired end state, prosecuting contiguous operations to suppress, neutralize, and destroy "ALL" who use terrorism to expand and enforce their political will with a deliberate limited wars that have methodological end states. Lastly, sounding more like a General MacArther, the General Flynn's diffuse strategy seems to ignore the most principles of war deduced by Von Clausewitz and Napoleon: Concentration of force on the objective to be attacked. Instead, fighting an ideology "Radical Islam" seems more abstract then any splatter painting of modern are in principle form it suggests a commitment to simplicity to motivate our nation to prepare for and endure the national commitment to a long war.

Since we can all agree there is no magical solution, then normative pragmatism of the likes that General. Flynn's assessment provides, must be taken into account in an operation and tactical MDMP. Ignoring and silencing Subject Matter Experts (SME's) will net nothing more than failure, a failure that could be measured in innocent civilian lives as a statistical body count. I could see General Flynn's suggestions and in expertise bolstering a movement to establish a CORP level active duty unit to prepare, plan, and implemented in phases 0, IV, & V (JP 5-0) . Bear in mind, Counter Insurgency (COIN) was never considered a National strategy but instead at tactical strategy and at most an operational strategy.

William Struse TOP 500 REVIEWER on July 17, 2016
The Crossroads of Our Republic

Several times in its nearly 250 years of existence our Nation has been at a crossroads. Looking back on our War for Independence, the Civil War, and WWII we know the decisions made in those tumultuous times forever altered the destiny of our Republic.

We are once again at one of those crossroads where the battle lines have been drawn, only this time in an asymmetrical war between western democracy and the radical Islamists and nation states who nurture them. In his timely book Field of Fight, Lt. General Michael T. Flynn provides a unique perspective on this war and what he believes are some of the steps necessary to meet this foe.

Field of Fight begins as an autobiography in which the author gives you a sense of who he is as a man and a soldier. This background information then provides the reader with a better perspective through which to evaluate his analysis of the challenges we face as well as the course of action he believes we need to take to meet those challenges.

The following are a few of the guidelines General Flynn proposes for developing a winning strategy in our war with radical Islam and other potential foes:

1. Properly assess your environment and clearly define your enemy;
2. Face reality – for politicians, this is never an easy thing to do;
3. Understand the social context and fabric of the operational environment;
4. Recognize who's in charge of the enemy's forces.

In Field of Fight General Flynn makes the case that we are losing this war with radical Islam because our nation's leadership has failed to develop a winning strategy. Further he opines that our current leaders lack the clarity of vision and moral certitude that understands American democracy is a "better way", that not all forms of human government are equal, and that there are principled reasons worth fighting for - the very basic of those being, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

I'll admit I'm concerned about the future of our country. As a husband and a father of five I wonder about the world we leaving for our children to inherit. I fear we have lost our moral compass thus creating a vacuum in which human depravity as exemplified by today's radical Islamists thrives.

Equally concerning to me is what happens when the pendulum swings the other way. Will we have the moral and principled leaders to check our indignation before it goes too far? When that heart rending atrocity which is sure to come finally pushes the American people to white hot wrath who will hold our own passions in check? In a nation where Judeo-Christian moral absolutes are an outdated notion what will keep us from becoming that which we most hate?

As I stated at the start of this review, today we are at a crossroads. Once again our nation needs principled men and women in positions of leadership who understand the Field of Fight as described by General Flynn and have the wisdom and courage to navigate this battlefield.

* * *

In summary, although I don't agree with everything written in this book I found it to be an educational read which will provided me with much food for thought over the coming months. As a representative republic choosing good leadership requires that we as citizens understand the problems and challenges we face as a nation. Today radical Islam is one of those challenges and General Flynn's book Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies gives a much needed perspective on the subject.

Terry M Petty on July 16, 2016
Flynn does great with military intelligence, needs more cultural intelligence

Gen Flynn has been in the news a lot lately. He apparently did not get on well in DC with his views on fighting terrorism. That is very relevant now as we are seeking better ways to fight ISIS and terror in general. I read his book today to learn what is on his mind. Flynn had a lot of experience starting in the 82nd Airborne and was almost always in intelligence work. Army intelligence is narrowly focused - where is the enemy, how many of them are there, how are they armed and what is the best way to destroy them. Undoubtedly he was good at this. However, that is not the kind of intelligence we need to defeat ISIS. Flynn's book shows no sign of cultural awareness, which is the context by which we must build intelligence about our opponent. In Iraq, he did learn the difference between who was Sunni and who was Shia but that was it. He shows no sign of any historical knowledge about these groups and how they think and live. In looking at Afghanistan, he seems unaware of the various clans and languages amongst different people. The 2 primary languages of Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari. Dari is essentially the same as Farsi, so the Persian influence has been strong in the country for a long time. Flynn seems totally unaware. Intelligence in his world is obtained from interrogation and captured documents. They are processed fast and tell him who their next target should be. This kind of work is not broad enough to give him a strategic background. He sees USA's challenges in the world as a big swath of enemies that are all connected and monolithic. North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Syria, ISIS, and so forth. All need to be dealt with in a forceful manner. He never seems to think about matching resources with objective.

This monlithic view of our opponents is obviously wrong. Pres George W Bush tried it that way with the Axis of Evil. The 1950's Cold War was all built in fear of the monolithic Soviet Union and China. All these viewpoints were failures.
Flynn does not see it though. In the book, Flynn says invading Iraq in 2003 might have been the wrong choice. He would have invaded Iran. The full Neocon plan was for 7 countries in 5 years, right after knocking down Iraq, then we would do the same to Iran. I hope we have lost a lot of that hubris by now. But with poor vision by leaders like Flynn, we might get caught up again in this craziness.

To beat ISIS and Al Qaeda type groups we need patience and allies. We have to dry up the source of the terrorists that want to die. That will be done with a combination of cultural outreaches as well as armed force.
I am sure the Presidential candidates will both see that Flynn does not have that recipe. Where is a General that does? We have often made this mistake. Sixty Six years ago, we felt good that Gen Douglas MacArthur "knew the Oriental mind" and he would guid us to victory in Korea. That ended up as a disaster at the end of 1950. I think we are better off at working with leaders that understand the people that are trying to terrorize us. Generals don't develop those kinds of empathic abilities.

[Nov 20, 2016] Rand Paul says he will oppose John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani for Secretary of State

Notable quotes:
"... "Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president," ..."
"... "It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was ..."
Nov 20, 2016 | rare.us

Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday in an op-ed for Rare that he would oppose President-elect Donald Trump's rumored selection of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as Secretary of State.

"Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president,"

Paul wrote citing U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya that Trump has criticized but that Bolton strongly advocated.

Reports since have indicated that former New York City mayor and loyal Trump ally, Rudy Giuliani is being considered for the post.

The Washington Post's David Weigel reports , "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a newly reelected member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this morning that he was inclined to oppose either former U.N. ambassador John Bolton or former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani if they were nominated for secretary of state."

"It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was a big lesson," Paul told the Post. "Trump said that a thousand times. It would be a huge mistake for him to give over his foreign policy to someone who [supported the war]. I mean, you could not find more unrepentant advocates of regime change."

Related: Rand Paul: Will Donald Trump betray voters by hiring John Bolton?

[Nov 19, 2016] Trump and the Neoconservatives by Jon Basil Utley

Notable quotes:
"... as sheltered intellectuals, often in cluttered small offices, many found it exciting to imagine themselves ruling much of the world, like the old Roman proconsuls. ..."
"... But more unending wars will continue to sap America's strength and prejudice the world's former goodwill toward our nation. Empires all eventually make a transition from where they are profitable to when they become destructively bankrupting. ..."
Nov 13, 2016 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Even before the Iraq War, John Bolton was a leading brain behind the neoconservatives' war-and-conquest agenda. Long ago I wrote about him, in "John Bolton and U.S. Lawlessness," "The Bush administration's international lawlessness did not come from nowhere. Its intellectual foundations were laid long before 9/11 by neoconservatives." I quoted Bolton, "It is a big mistake to for us to grant any validity to international law because over the long term, the goal of those who think that it really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States." In fact I set up a web page, the John Bolton File , containing various links about him and the neocons.

Nearly all of Donald Trump's appointments to his transition team are very encouraging. Indeed, I have known many of them for years. But he could undermine his whole agenda by allowing neocons back into their former staffing and leadership role over Republican foreign policy. The New York Times reported how many are now scrambling to get back into their old dominant positions. And now National Review , which supported all the disasters in Iraq, has come out to promote Bolton for secretary of state.

I have written about the neocons for many years. Their originators were former leftists who later became anti-communists. After the collapse of communism, they provided the intellectual firepower for hawks and imperialists who wanted an aggressive American foreign policy. Having lived and done business for many years in the Third World, I thought they would only bring about disasters for America. What especially interested me was their almost total lack of experience in and knowledge about the outside world, particularly Asia and Latin America. I even set up a web page called War Party Neoconservative Biographies as I researched their education and experience.

Brilliant academics as many of them were, their "foreign" experience was at best a semester or two in London or, for the more daring, some studies in Paris or, for the Jewish ones, a summer on a kibbutz in Israel.

They are above all Washington insiders. John Bolton is very typical. A summa cum laude graduate of Yale, then Yale Law School, time with a top Washington law firm, and then various academic and political appointments, but no foreign living or work experience.

Also, as sheltered intellectuals, often in cluttered small offices, many found it exciting to imagine themselves ruling much of the world, like the old Roman proconsuls.

Long ago Peter Viereck explained them with his observation about the vicarious "lust of many intellectuals for brute violence." No wonder they urged Bush on to his disastrous war and occupation policies. Even before Iraq they were first urging dominance over Russia and then military confrontation with China, when a U.S. spy plane was collided by a Chinese fighter plane. It wasn't just the Arab world which was in their sights.

I write about all this based on my own experience of studying in Germany and France, working 15 years in South America, and speaking four languages fluently.

Trump appointments so far are really showing his focus upon getting America back on track with faster economic growth, which has been so stunted by Obama's runaway regulatory regime. To understand their costs, see analysis in the Competitive Enterprise Institute's "Ten Thousand Commandments."

But more unending wars will continue to sap America's strength and prejudice the world's former goodwill toward our nation. Empires all eventually make a transition from where they are profitable to when they become destructively bankrupting. Few would now doubt that America has crossed this threshold. When it costs us a million dollars per year per man to field combat infantry in unending wars, we will face economic ruin just like happened with the Roman Empire.

The risk is that Trump's foreign-affairs transition team becomes infiltrated. Much of the transition is being run out of the Heritage Foundation, which was a big promoter of the Iraq War.

Mainly, however, Vice President Mike Pence, who heads up the transition team, was another war wanter and still supports the neoconservative agenda-e.g., he strongly supported the attack on Libya . He also wants much more military spending.

Pence is great on domestic issues but not on foreign policy. Although a Catholic, he also is very close to those evangelicals who believe that supporting Israel's expansion will help to speed up the second coming of Christ and, consequently, Armageddon. One must assume that he, together with the military-industrial complex, is plugging for the neoconservatives again to work their agenda upon America and the world.

Jon Basil Utley is publisher of The American Conservative .

[Nov 19, 2016] The Wall Street Journal Steve Bannon on Politics as War

Notable quotes:
"... He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says something about what a historic figure he could be." ..."
"... I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. ..."
"... Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States ..."
Nov 19, 2016 | www.breitbart.com

Stephen K. Bannon in a rare interview talks with Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal about the winning campaign of Donald J. Trump and his part in helping the president-elect accomplish his vision for America. Bannon also refutes charges of being antisemitic or a white nationalist saying the allegations, "just aren't serious. It's a joke."

Below are a few excerpts from the interview:

... ... ... Why does he think that leftists are so fixated on him? "They were ready to coronate Hillary Clinton. That didn't happen, and I'm one of the reasons why. So, by the way, I wear these attacks as an emblem of pride." Mr. Bannon believes Mr. Trump to be uniquely suited to make the case, as "one of the best political orators in American history, rated with William Jennings Bryan." He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says something about what a historic figure he could be."

I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans.

"Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States"

[Nov 18, 2016] Meet Mike Pompeo, The New Director Of The CIA

Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo was close to Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served with Pompeo in the House. Last month, Pompeo helped prepare Pence for the vice presidential debate with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. ..."
"... Pompeo is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the most vocal critics of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. ..."
"... He's a supporter of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk data collection program and sought to restore the agency's access to the data it had already collected under the Patriot Act from its inception through late last year. ..."
"... He was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and with backing from the Koch Industries political action committee. The Wichita-based conglomerate's PAC is well known for its support of conservative candidates. ..."
"... Though Pompeo is generally known for his opposition to Obama administration policies, he's occasionally given heat to some fellow Republicans. Last year, his name was floated as a potential rival to Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to become House speaker. ..."
"... Pompeo has sponsored numerous bills that would maintain or increase sanctions on Iran over its nuclear weapons program. He's been a staunch opponent of the deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that eases sanctions in exchange for dismantling the nuclear weapons program. ..."
"... Pompeo has served on the House Select Benghazi Committee. ..."
"... When the committee released its report on the attack in June, Pompeo and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio released a separate report that was even more sharply critical of Clinton's handling of the affair. They wrote that Clinton intentionally misled Americans about the nature of the attack because Obama was up for re-election. ..."
"... Pompeo has made some controversial statements about Muslims. Weeks after the Boston marathon bombing in 2013, in a speech on the House floor, he not only accused Islamic faith leaders of not doing enough to condemn terrorist attacks, but also suggested they might be encouraging them. ..."
"... Couldn't give a fiddlers fuck about the issues of global warming at this stage and crisis we now face. I just want to know if the asshole is stupid enough to use NATO to get energy for this Country that neither we nor the Saudi's have any longer. ..."
"... If Trump is smart he will engage detente with the Russians at the expense of all of his war mongering staff. ..."
"... Looks like Trump decided to sell us down the river rather than drain the swamp. And now we're caught between his thugs and an army of crazy children in the streets. ..."
"... The buck still stops with Trump and he isn't even in office yet for anyone to judge him fairly. For me that means he gets a year or two. Further, he's a smart guy and I never assumed he was going to bring in 4000+ newbies into his administration. The fucking wheels would lock up immediately. He knows this. He needs competent, loyal people in these roles, period. ..."
"... Trump is already showing himself through his choices. This guy is a hard liner in the push for the govt to trample the constitution and treat the citizens like serfs. ..."
"... The advantage of the Trump win is the exposure that has already happened. The Ds and Rs have been exposed. MSM has been exposed for extreme bias. The rats that double down on their anti-Trump rhetoric think they are hiding their own crimes when really they are exposing themselves for all the world to see. The "Love Trumps Hate" protestors are exposing all their own hypocrisy for all the world to see. ..."
"... Appointing a member of the Bengazhi committee to run the CIA means Hillary is completely FUCKED though. That's a bonus, a big one. ..."
Nov 18, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com

Moments after Donald Trump offered the Attorney General spot to senator Jeff Sessions (which he promptly accepted), it was announced that Trump had also picked rep. Mike Pompeo as CIA director, who likewise accepted.

Trump has offered position of CIA director to US Rep Mike Pompeo and Pompeo has accepted -transition official

- Steve Holland (@steveholland1) November 18, 2016

The selection of Pompeo, a three-term Republican from Wichita, started earlier this week when he met with Donald Trump, according to the president-elect's transition team. Now we know what the meetings were about. Courtesy of McClatchy , here is profile of the new director of America's top spy agency:

* * *

Pompeo originally supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential bid. Like most of his Kansas colleagues, Pompeo backed Trump when it was clear the New York real-estate developer would become the Republican presidential nominee, though not enthusiastically.

But Pompeo was close to Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served with Pompeo in the House. Last month, Pompeo helped prepare Pence for the vice presidential debate with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.

The most prominent Kansas elected official to endorse Trump early on was Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now a member of the Trump transition team and a possible candidate for U.S. Attorney General.

Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and recently defeated Rep. Tim Huelskamp are both potential picks for agriculture secretary.

Pompeo is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the most vocal critics of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran.

He's a supporter of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk data collection program and sought to restore the agency's access to the data it had already collected under the Patriot Act from its inception through late last year.

He's a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Harvard Law School. He's also a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Pompeo, who grew up in the traditionally Republican enclave of Orange County, California, founded Thayer Aerospace, a company that made parts for commercial and military aircraft. After selling Thayer, he became president of Sentry International, a company that manufactures and sells equipment used in oil fields.

He was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and with backing from the Koch Industries political action committee. The Wichita-based conglomerate's PAC is well known for its support of conservative candidates.

Though Pompeo is generally known for his opposition to Obama administration policies, he's occasionally given heat to some fellow Republicans. Last year, his name was floated as a potential rival to Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to become House speaker.

Earlier this year, he briefly flirted with a primary challenge to Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran after the state's junior senator appeared to break with Senate Republican opposition to Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland.

Joe Romance, an associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University, said it makes sense for Pompeo to consider a job in the executive branch, given the way the stage is set from Kansas to Washington in the next several years.

"He's ambitious," Romance said. "Jerry Moran just got reelected. Roberts is not up until 2020. So where do you need to move? And I don't think Ryan's going anywhere as speaker. So why not?"

Pompeo has sponsored numerous bills that would maintain or increase sanctions on Iran over its nuclear weapons program. He's been a staunch opponent of the deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that eases sanctions in exchange for dismantling the nuclear weapons program.

In February, Pompeo and two of his Republican House colleagues unsuccessfully sought visas to monitor the country's elections.

When Iran detained a group of American sailors earlier whose ship had wandered into its territorial waters earlier this year, Pompeo introduced a bill requiring the Obama administration to investigate whether Iran violated the Geneva Convention. It didn't become law. The sailors were not harmed, and the Navy later concluded that the sailors had entered Iran's waters by mistake.

Pompeo has served on the House Select Benghazi Committee. The special panel was created in 2014 to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. One of its key targets was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on whose watch the attack had occurred.

When the committee released its report on the attack in June, Pompeo and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio released a separate report that was even more sharply critical of Clinton's handling of the affair. They wrote that Clinton intentionally misled Americans about the nature of the attack because Obama was up for re-election.

"Officials at the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, learned almost in real time that the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," Pompeo and Jordan wrote. "With the presidential election just 56 days away, rather than tell the American people the truth and increase the risk of losing an election, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly."

Pompeo has made some controversial statements about Muslims. Weeks after the Boston marathon bombing in 2013, in a speech on the House floor, he not only accused Islamic faith leaders of not doing enough to condemn terrorist attacks, but also suggested they might be encouraging them.

"When the most devastating terrorist attacks on America in the last 20 years come overwhelmingly from people of a single faith, and are performed in the name of that faith, a special obligation falls on those that are the leaders of that faith," Pompeo said. " Instead of responding, silence has made these Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these acts and more importantly still, in those that may well follow."

But last month, three militiamen were arrested in western Kansas in an alleged plot to blow up an apartment complex that's home to Somali Muslim refugees.

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said statements like Pompeo's were detrimental to policies that keep all Americans safe.

"We believe it's counterproductive to our nation's safety and security because they will act based on their faulty perceptions of Muslims and Islam," Hooper said, "and will not carry out policies based on accurate and balanced information."


wildbad, Nov 18, 2016 8:25 AM ,
I'm stunned by this....bulk collection proponent?
Son of Captain Nemo -> wildbad, Nov 18, 2016 8:30 AM ,
Yep... Like all the rest that pass through the "revolving doors" of D.C. he'll feather his nest and continue "killing some folks" and "torturing some folks".

Only not in Syria or Ukraine -that is for certain!

wildbad -> Son of Captain Nemo, Nov 18, 2016 8:33 AM ,
some of his opinions are concerning but a quick bio read in wikipedia showed some pretty well reasoned unorthodox stances.

he's not a global warming sycophant, nor particularly doctrinaire in things energy. but a bulk collection fan..I was really hoping for someone with a track record of following the fourth amendment.

Son of Captain Nemo -> wildbad, Nov 18, 2016 8:42 AM ,
Couldn't give a fiddlers fuck about the issues of global warming at this stage and crisis we now face. I just want to know if the asshole is stupid enough to use NATO to get energy for this Country that neither we nor the Saudi's have any longer.

We'll know these cocksuckers are sincere when they tell us the truth about the "riches of bakken oil" is 10 years and not 100 and that the systemic looting operation in the ME using our military is counter productive given the tradeoff of war with the Russians and the accumulated debt to fund our misadventures that will never find a buyer!

Only time will tell.

Son of Captain Nemo -> wildbad, Nov 18, 2016 8:56 AM ,
On the road less travelled.

And why February of 2014 changed the calculus of everything including Russia's participation in the booting out of NATO from Syria. https://southfront.org/us-experts-offer-donald-trump-3-steps-for-normali...

If Trump is smart he will engage detente with the Russians at the expense of all of his war mongering staff.

Joe Davola -> Son of Captain Nemo, Nov 18, 2016 9:25 AM ,
Let me preface this by saying I find bulk collection totally an affront to the constitution, however "private" companies already have bulk collection in place. It's only the slightest catalyst from there to the government requiring the companies hand over all that data. I'm surprised people advocate for bulk data openly, when they know the hurdle to cross to access private databases is very low. And that whole shooter's phone charade where Apple "stood up" to the FBI was so much bluster when both sides likely already had the capability that they claimed not to have.
swmnguy -> Joe Davola, Nov 18, 2016 9:32 AM ,
The "hurdle" is even lower than you state. The only "hurdle" is whether they can openly use that data in court. They already have it all. All the data goes through collection "checkpoints."
Billy the Poet -> joeyman9, Nov 18, 2016 9:54 AM ,
Looks like Trump decided to sell us down the river rather than drain the swamp. And now we're caught between his thugs and an army of crazy children in the streets.

This is why I would have preferred seeing Hillary win despite the fact that I voted for Trump. It felt like a con and a con it was, apparently.

lucitanian -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 10:22 AM ,
When was it anything but a con. Madness, when you keep doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. The deep state has you suckered, and you still think its the land of the free. Reality is relative to your perception. Its an extension of what you want to believe. You live with your delusions, no one elses.
froze25 -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 11:02 AM ,
Nice we can all be deluded together. I don't mind this choice its not for the CIA director to decide what is constitutional or not, that is for the Supreme court so we the people must challenge the collection and use of the collected data in the Supreme court. The CIA director is to obey the Law as it is presented to him.
new game -> froze25, Nov 18, 2016 11:08 AM ,
obey the Law

lol

Mr. Bones -> froze25, Nov 18, 2016 12:49 PM ,
That's not how the CIA works. They do a mea culpa, then 10 years later the same mea culpa. The spooks were behind torture and secret prisons during the Bush admin, they're behind the not torture that doesn't happen in prisons that we don't admit to. Only the language changed. We all pretend to be offended when we find out that unspeakable acts are being committed in our names, or we deny it - that's been working for the left for 2 terms.
PTR -> Mr. Bones, Nov 18, 2016 1:30 PM ,
Yes, that's what's done to us. One via the Corporate, the other via the State. No lube, though.
The Merovingian -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 11:10 AM ,
The buck still stops with Trump and he isn't even in office yet for anyone to judge him fairly. For me that means he gets a year or two. Further, he's a smart guy and I never assumed he was going to bring in 4000+ newbies into his administration. The fucking wheels would lock up immediately. He knows this. He needs competent, loyal people in these roles, period.

Time will tell on this. If his appointments start going apeshit like OBungler's did, then we have a real problem. For individual citizens the choice is clear, hope for the best and keep planning for the worst, which is what I've been doing for the last 12 years+. If you and your family are not prepared for some major disruptions to your way of life and basic daily sustenance, then you better get on it.

Lastly, the deep state is NEVER going away either. Not even sure they can be curbed. I honestly don't have an answer for that one yet except to be prepared to completely and totally unplug from everything, and become 'invisible, passive and benign' to the system itself at some point.

Creepy Lurker -> The Merovingian, Nov 18, 2016 11:45 AM ,
I logged in to thank you for this Voice Of Reason post. I don't know just what people expected. Was he supposed to start appointing random biker dudes to cabinet posts? Come on. To some extent one must work with the system if one is to have any hope of making changes to it.

Like baba looey keeps saying, let the man work, FFS.

Seer -> Creepy Lurker, Nov 18, 2016 12:35 PM ,

Do people demand a really just system? Well, we'll arrange it so that they'll be satisfied with one that's a little less unjust ... They want a revolution, and we'll give them reforms -- lots of reforms; we'll drown them in reforms. Or rather, we'll drown them in promises of reforms, because we'll never give them real ones either!!

DARIO FO, Accidental Death of an Anarchist

Blankone -> The Merovingian, Nov 18, 2016 11:55 AM ,
Trump is already showing himself through his choices. This guy is a hard liner in the push for the govt to trample the constitution and treat the citizens like serfs. But Trump's supporters are ok with it because it is "their guy" doing it, just like the Dems/liberals/whatever were ok with Obama shredding the constitution and killing hundreds of thousands because Obama was "their guy".

The velvet glove will come off soon and you will only have the iron fist.

Yes We Can. But... -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 11:30 AM ,
With HRC22, I"d get about 2% of what I'd want.

With Trump, perhaps 60%. I'm happy with that, and will try not to bitch about the 40%.

Don't get me wrong... Putting HRC in a coffin, is a wonderful thing... But my sensibilities tell me that 'DRAINING A SWAMP' is too much of a task for Donald Trump (or anyone else)...

f_s

stacking12321 -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 10:28 AM ,
I almost agree with you about Hillary, would have been sweet to see the economy collapse on her watch instead of trumps.

But with Hillary the risk of ww3 would be imminent.

WordSmith2013 -> stacking12321, Nov 18, 2016 11:03 AM ,
MP tore up Hillary during Benghazigate.

http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=57032

Mike Pompeo destroys Hillary Clinton during prime time!
Seer -> stacking12321, Nov 18, 2016 12:40 PM ,
Not sure if it's going to be "sweet." For sure, though, it's going to collapse. ALL empires collapse (regardless of ideology/religion/leadership).
madmax1965 -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 10:32 AM ,
Drain the swamp indeed! I can't believe people thought the Donald would change anything! Same shit different color(literally and figuratively) douchebags!
PT -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 11:26 AM ,
Billy: Who is going to help Trump drain the swamp? The current swamp monsters? Why would they want to ruin their own home? That was always the problem.

Either way, I am glad he got in. You knew you were going nowhere with Hillary. If Trump fails then he will prove that outsiders are no good either. The election started out looking like insider vs insider - Clinton vs Bush. That was a good reason for all the voters to stay home, or to write "Me" or "None of the Above" on their ballots - for those who had paper ballots.

If Trump was a Conspiracy then his job was to make the plebs think they had a choice, to drag them to the voting booth, to create the illusion of legitimacy for the new government. If Trump can not change anything then the next "outsider" will have to put on an even bigger show and let us remember, this election will be a hard act to follow. My biggest fear is post-election amnesia, everything is already forgotten, let alone remembered in four years time. Is Wikileaks still chugging away? Where is that fantastic leak that would supposedly send Hillary straight to jail? What came of the Podesta emails? Are his spirits truly cooked? Are all the FBI investigations to be forgotten? Come the next election, are we really going to see crimes greater than the Comet Pizza allegations bubble to the surface? If the alleged crimes of the past year, and especially the last month or week, are forgotten, does that mean they were simply elaborate theatre? Will people remember this past year and, come the next election, declare "Well, look what happened in 2016! If that meant nothing, then how on earth could any other news mean anything? Refuse to participate in the show."

The advantage of the Trump win is the exposure that has already happened. The Ds and Rs have been exposed. MSM has been exposed for extreme bias. The rats that double down on their anti-Trump rhetoric think they are hiding their own crimes when really they are exposing themselves for all the world to see. The "Love Trumps Hate" protestors are exposing all their own hypocrisy for all the world to see.

Worst thing about this election? I paid attention. Politicians lie, especially in the lead up to an election. Everything they say can be safely ignored. Damn shame I got sucked into paying attention to this one - for the first time in my life. But now, in order to gain the attention of people who think like me, the next election will have to have theatrics of an order of magnitude greater than this one. Scary, eh! ;)

TruthHammer -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 11:39 AM ,
Not every pick trump makes it going to please everyone. Trump is a hardliner on fighting Terrorism, that means you aren't going to get Assange/Snowden love-ins, or someone trying to destroy the intelligence overreach of the US. Appointing a member of the Bengazhi committee to run the CIA means Hillary is completely FUCKED though. That's a bonus, a big one.

The guy is Half-TeaParty, with NeoCon leanings towards fighting terrorism. Trump is going to be libertarian on War and Interventionism, but Neo-Con on Islamic Terror.

None of that has to do with "not draining the swamp"

Seer -> TruthHammer, Nov 18, 2016 12:48 PM ,
Perfect example of why all this SHIT is going to continue! Terrorism is an idea. It is the PERFECT tool for govts to exert control.

"Islamic Terror?" CIA started it all and the western propaganda machine has churned it into something that morons suck up.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. - H.L. Mencken

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H. L. Mencken
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hlmencke101109.html
Argentumentum -> Billy the Poet, Nov 18, 2016 1:15 PM ,
You can ELECT but not SELECT - Trump to Israelis: Together we will stand up to Iran. http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=141817

If voting could change anything ... it would be illegal. Emma Goldman

How many times will the monkeys push the button before they realize they never get the banana?

Big Brother -> joeyman9, Nov 18, 2016 12:42 PM ,
Thanks, man. Big Brother loves you too.
VinceFostersGhost -> BennyBoy, Nov 18, 2016 10:55 AM ,

he not only accused Islamic faith leaders of not doing enough to condemn terrorist attacks, but also suggested they might be encouraging them.

Huh.....really?

Chris Dakota -> BennyBoy, Nov 18, 2016 1:09 PM ,
...

Neocon Invasion of Team Trump Fully Underway Trump must stop neocon takeover of his administration Wayne Madsen

The purge of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie loyalists from the Donald Trump presidential transition team has little to do with Christie's Bridgegate scandal and everything to do with a battle between Bush-era neoconservatives and national security realists for control over key departments of the Trump administration.

It appears that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner , the publisher of the New York Observer and someone who is aligned with the Likud Party of Israel, is now the de facto chair of the Trump transition team , especially when it comes to national security matters.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the official chairman of the team, is concentrating on domestic policy appointments, such as the rumored appointment of Texas Senator Ted Cruz as Attorney General.

Kushner fired Christie and Christie loyalist, former House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers, from the transition team and replaced them with the discredited neocon Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy.

It is likely that Gaffney will seek to bring a host of neocons who championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq into the Trump administration.

Also fired was Matthew Freedman, another Christie loyalist. Kushner never liked Christie because as a federal prosecutor in north Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father, real estate tycoon Charles Kushner, who received a prison sentence at Christie's urging.

Where one finds the likes of Gaffney, former CIA director James Woolsey, also a member of the Trump transition team, and John Bolton, rumored to be in consideration for Secretary of State or deputy Secretary of State, one will find the other neocons who drove the United States into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These include Richard Perle, who claimed U.S. troops invading Iraq would be met with Iraqis throwing "flowers and candy." This editor wrote the following about Perle's fatuous claim in a March 31, 2003, article for CounterPunch: "Perle's military experience does not permit him to distinguish between flowers and candy and bullets and mortar rounds."

There is someone far more sinister than Gaffney, Bolton, and Perle chomping at the bit to join the new administration.

Wayne Madsen Reports has learned from multiple knowledgeable sources that the proponent of neo-fascism, Michael Ledeen, is working closely with former Defense Intelligence Agency chief Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, to ensure that as many neocons from the Bush 43 and Reagan eras find senior positions in the Trump administration.

Flynn co-authored a book with Ledeen that was released in July and titled, "The Field of Flight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies."

The book represents typical neocon pabulum more than it does realism.

In July, Kushner's Observer, unsurprisingly, published a five-star review of the book.

Flynn, who distinguished himself admirably by suggesting that the Obama administration was coddling the Islamic State and its allied jihadists in Syria, appears not to recognize that it has long been the desire of neocons like Ledeen, Perle, Woolsey, and Bolton to divide the Arab nation-states into warring factions so that Israel can hold ultimate sway over the entire Middle East.

Breitbart launched his site in 2007 from Jerusalem, its a Mossad front.

Most of the posters in the begining were Jews and Christian Zionists. They started to use white nationalists during the primary like they used them in Ukraine, then purged.

http://media.breitbart.com/media/2015/11/Screen-Shot-2015-11-17-at-09.04...

I was struck by this photo of Ivanka in cocktail attire, or fox news chick look. She is being used as a distraction for the Jap guys.

https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/article_small/public...

YHC-FTSE -> Chris Dakota, Nov 18, 2016 1:25 PM ,
+1 Once I saw the zionists rubbing shoulders in the thicket of Trump's cabinet, I was hoping for a 50/50 split. But I dare say the zionist neocons' takeover is complete. Mike Pompous-Ass is pure MIC through and through (See Thayer Aerospace).

Another zionist cunt with Israel-first mentality whose only dubious virutes are hatred of muslims and Hillary.

Zero change in domestic and foreign intelligence policies from Hitlery who was planning to go to war with Iran by way of war against the Russo-Syrian alliance.

Any stupid fucker who is a proponent of blanket surveillance is a fucking traitor to every values in individual freedom and rights that I hold dear.

BullyBearish -> Chris Dakota, Nov 18, 2016 1:32 PM ,
The non-Semitic majority of Israel want to demonize the true Semitics (Arabs) by disparaging Islam in order to steal their land and its resources. Since they cannot or do not want to do all of the killing themselves, they use Christians to do their dirty work. The US Christian political leaders (e.g. Pence/Pompeo) have been targetted by Israel:

One of the keys to AIPAC's success is its education arm, the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF). AIEF sponsors trips to Israel for Members of Congress and their staffs, and uses these trips generally relay Likud's view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In all, AIEF spent $2,035,233 sponsoring congressional trips to Israel in 2011, according to data my blog, Republic Report , gathered through the Legistorm database. In contrast, the more moderate Israel lobby J Street - which launched in 2008 to provide an alternative to AIPAC's hawkish advocacy - spent only $45,954 on congressional trips to Israel. J Street's trips, included more extensive meetings with Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups. Which means that J Street was, in this area, outspent by a factor of 44: 1 in 2011. Republic Report has plotted this data into the following chart:

Look at the itinerary (requires free registration with Legistorm) of a nine-day, $20,000 AIEF trip Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) took in August 2011. During his trip, Pompeo was treated to meals, information sessions, tours, and other activities with mostly hawkish high-ranking Israeli officials, academics, and non-profit leaders. The sessions included "Terror from Gaza and Sinai" and "Hamas Next Door." During the nine days, only an hour was spent with Palestinian officials, with a short meeting scheduled in with Salam Fayyad, a Palestinian Authority Prime Minister widely viewed as highly sympathetic to the Israeli government.

Son of Captain Nemo -> Joe Davola, Nov 18, 2016 9:41 AM ,
J D

What you say is in fact true. But it's the "coordination" that takes place between government and industry with that information that is lethal. When NSA "cherry picks" and manipulates that date to remove it's "rivals" (perceived or otherwise) and uses the Justice Department acting as the "stick", you know anything becomes possible!

Seer -> Son of Captain Nemo, Nov 18, 2016 12:49 PM ,
Power corrupts.

[Nov 15, 2016] Over half of Ukraines population lives below poverty level

Nov 15, 2016 | eadaily.com
Nearly 60% (58.3%) of the population in Ukraine lives below the poverty line, according to data of the M.V. Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Surveys, the National Academy of Science of Ukraine.

In 2015, this indicator was half as much – 28.6%. "The poverty index has increased twofold along with the actual cost of living," says Svetlana Polyakova , the leading research fellow at the Living Standard Department at the Demography Institute. "In addition, within the past year, we saw a growth of the poverty level defined by the UN criteria for estimation of internationally comparable poverty line in Central and Eastern Europe."

The highest poverty line was registered among the families having at least one child – 38.6% and pensioners – 23%. The situation may deteriorate this year. According to the State Service of Statistics, savings of Ukrainians in April-June fell by 5.297billion hryvnias (more than $200 million at the current exchange rate).

The cost of living in Ukraine in 2016 makes up 1,544 hryvnias (about $60).

Earlier, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman said the previous policy of populism and "money printing and distribution to people" made the country weaker and the people poorer.

[Nov 13, 2016] Donald Trumps Foreign Policy is as interventionist as Clinton, Bush or Obama administrations

Expectation of any change were just an illusion. Trump decided to practice gangster capitalism on international arena
Nov 13, 2016 | nationalinterest.org
That is why watching President-elect Trump's choices for his foreign policy team is so important. If he chooses primarily alumni of the Bush administration, we can be fairly certain that there will be few, if any, beneficial changes in Washington's security strategy. Indeed, it could conceivably be even more interventionist than that pursued by the Clinton, Bush or Obama administrations.

The main difference might be that it would be conducted unilaterally rather than multilaterally, especially if someone like John Bolton gets a key position.

If on the other hand, Trump begins to pick advisers who have little or no previous government service, it would be an encouraging step. Watch for appointments from realist enclaves like Defense Priorities, the Independent Institute and others. Also watch for the appointment of individual unorthodox or "rogue" scholars from such places as Notre Dame University, George Mason University, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and (ironically) the Bush School at Texas A&M University. Such moves would indicate that Trump was choosing new blood and really intending to make a meaningful change in the direction of U.S. foreign policy.

For now, we can only wait and watch and hope.

[Nov 13, 2016] The slogan drain the swamp proved to quite oppostite of what it initially meants. It now means bring all thos bottom feeded into the administration by Beverly Mann

Notable quotes:
"... It's not just corporate lobbyists who are playing early, visible roles in the new power structure. Some of Trump's biggest political donors are shaping the incoming administration, including Rebekah Mercer, a daughter of billionaire Robert Mercer, who is figuring prominently in behind-the-scenes discussions, according to people familiar with the transition. ..."
"... Mercer is among four major donors appointed by Trump Friday to a 16-person executive committee overseeing his transition. The others are campaign finance chairman Steven Mnuchin, New York financier Anthony Scaramucci and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel. ..."
Nov 12, 2016 | angrybearblog.com

The chant echoed through Donald Trump's boisterous rallies leading up to Election Day: "Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp!"

"We are fighting for every citizen that believes that government should serve the people, not the donors and not the special interests," the billionaire real estate developer promised exuberant supporters at his last campaign rally in Manchester, N.H.

But just days later, there is little evidence that the president-elect is seeking to restrain wealthy interests from having access and influence in his administration.

It's not just corporate lobbyists who are playing early, visible roles in the new power structure. Some of Trump's biggest political donors are shaping the incoming administration, including Rebekah Mercer, a daughter of billionaire Robert Mercer, who is figuring prominently in behind-the-scenes discussions, according to people familiar with the transition.

Mercer is among four major donors appointed by Trump Friday to a 16-person executive committee overseeing his transition. The others are campaign finance chairman Steven Mnuchin, New York financier Anthony Scaramucci and Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel.

Meanwhile, top campaign fundraisers and a raft of lobbyists tied to some of the country's wealthiest industries have been put in charge of hiring and planning for specific federal agencies. They include J. Steven Hart, chairman of the law and lobbying shop Williams & Jensen; Michael McKenna, an energy company lobbyist who is overseeing planning for the Energy Department; and Dallas fundraiser Ray Washburne, was has been tapped to oversee the Commerce Department.

Billionaires who served as Trump's policy advisers, such as Oklahoma oil executive Harold Hamm, are under consideration for Cabinet positions.

– Donors and lobbyists already shaping Trump's 'drain the swamp' administration , Matea Gold and Tom Hamburger, Washington Post, today

LOL . LOL . So how about a new chant for protesters: DRAIN THE SWAP!?

... ... ...

UPDATE:

Asked about the tensions, and about Kushner's role in the leadership change at the transition team, Trump spokesman Jason Miller said, "Anybody seeing today's news about the appointment of Vice President-elect Mike Pence to run the Presidential Transition Team realizes that President-elect Donald J. Trump is serious about changing Washington whether the town likes it or not. This might ruffle the delicate sensitivities of the well-heeled two-martini lunch set, but President-elect Trump isn't fighting for them, he's fighting for the hard-working men and women outside the Beltway who don't care for insider bickering."

It's not uncommon for rivalries to emerge inside campaigns and administrations as advisers jockey to place allies in key roles and advance their policy priorities. But the level of internecine conflict during Trump's drive toward the GOP nomination was so extreme that it sometimes resulted in conflicting directives for even simple hiring and spending decisions.

– Trump team rivalries spark infighting , Kenneth P. Vogel, Nancy Cook and Alex Isenstadt, Politico, late last night

... ... ...

Anyone ?

[Nov 11, 2016] Clinton And The Neocons Huffington Post

Notable quotes:
"... Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides Richard Perle , Douglas Feith , and Elliott Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like Paul Wolfowitz - eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy team. ..."
Nov 08, 2016 | www.huffingtonpost.com
John Feffer Director, Foreign Policy In Focus and Editor, LobeLog Much has been made of the swing in political allegiances of neoconservatives in favor of Hillary Clinton.

As a group, Washington's neocons are generally terrified of Trump's unpredictability and his flirtation with the alt-right. They also support Clinton's more assertive foreign policy (not to mention her closer relationship to Israel). Perhaps, too, after eight long years in the wilderness, they're daydreaming of an appointment or two in a Clinton administration.

This group of previously staunch Republicans, who believe in using American military power to promote democracy, build nations, and secure U.S. interests abroad, have defected in surprising numbers. Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan , the Wall Street Journal 's Bret Stephens , and the Foreign Policy Initiative 's James Kirchick have all endorsed Clinton. Other prominent neocons like The National Review 's William Kristol , the Wall Street Journal 's Max Boot , and SAIS's Eliot Cohen have rejected Trump but not quite taken the leap to supporting Clinton.

A not particularly large or well-defined group, neoconservatives have attracted a disproportionate amount of attention in this election. For the Trump camp, these Republican defectors merely prove that the elite is out to get their candidate, thus reinforcing his outsider credentials (never mind that Trump initially wooed neocons like Kristol). For the left , the neocons are flocking to support a bird of their feather, at least when it comes to foreign policy, which reflects badly on Clinton. The mainstream media, meanwhile, is attracted to the man-bites-dog aspect of the story (news flash: members of the vast right-wing conspiracy support Clinton!).

As we come to the end of the election campaign, which has been more a clash of personalities than of ideologies, the neocon defections offer a much more interesting storyline. As the Republican Party potentially coalesces around a more populist center, the neocons are the canary in the coal mine. Their squawking suggests that the American political scene is about to suffer a cataclysm. What will that mean for U.S. foreign policy?

A History of Defection

The neoconservative movement began within the Democratic Party. Henry "Scoop" Jackson, a Democrat from Washington State, carved out a new position in the party with his liberal domestic policies and hardline Cold War stance. He was a strong booster of civil rights and environmental legislation. At the same time, he favored military build-up and a stronger relationship with Israel. He was also dismayed with the Nixon administration's dιtente with the Soviet Union.

Prioritizing foreign over domestic policy, Jackson's former aides Richard Perle , Douglas Feith , and Elliott Abrams - along with some fellow travelers like Paul Wolfowitz - eventually shifted their allegiance to the right-wing Republican Ronald Reagan. They formed an important pro-Israel, "peace through strength" nucleus within the new president's foreign policy team.

At the end of the Reagan era, their commitment to such policies as regime change in the Middle East, confrontation with Russia, and opposition to multilateral institutions like the United Nations brought them into conflict with realists in the George H.W. Bush administration. So many of them defected once again to support Bill Clinton. Writes Jim Lobe:

A small but not insignificant number of them, repelled by George H.W. Bush's realpolitik, and more specifically his Middle East policy and pressure on then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to join the Madrid peace conference after the first Gulf War, deserted the party in 1992 and publicly endorsed Bill Clinton. Richard Schifter, Morris Amitay of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Angier Biddle Duke, Rita Freedman of the Social Democrats USA, neocon union leaders John Joyce and Al Shanker, Penn Kemble of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, James Woolsey, Marty Peretz of The New Republic, and Joshua Muravchik of the American Enterprise Institute all signed a much-noted ad in The New York Times in August 1992 endorsing Clinton's candidacy. Their hopes of thus being rewarded with top positions in a Clinton administration were crushed.

The flirtation with Clinton's Democratic Party was short-lived. Woolsey, Schifter, and Kemble received appointments in the Clinton administration, but the neocons in general were unhappy with their limited influence, Clinton's (albeit inconsistent) multilateralism, and the administration's reluctance to intervene militarily in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia. Disenchantment turned to anger and then to organizing. In 1997, many of the same people who worked for Scoop Jackson and embraced Ronald Reagan put together the Project for the New American Century in an effort to preserve and expand America's post-Cold War unilateral power.

A handful of votes in Florida in 2000 and the attacks on September 11 the following year combined to give the neocons a second chance at transforming U.S. foreign policy. Dick Cheney became perhaps the most powerful vice president in modern American history, with Scooter Libby as his national security adviser. Donald Rumsfeld became secretary of defense, with Paul Wolfowitz as his deputy and Feith as head of the policy office. Elliott Abrams joined the National Security Council, and so on. Under their guidance, George W. Bush abandoned all pretense of charting a more modest foreign policy and went on a militarist bender.

The foreign policy disasters of the Bush era should have killed the careers of everyone involved. Unfortunately, there are plenty of think tanks and universities that value access over intelligence (or ethics) - and even the most incompetent and craven administration officials after leaving office retain their contacts (and their arrogance).

Those who worry that the neocons will be rewarded for their third major defection - to Reagan, to Bill Clinton, and now to Hillary Clinton - should probably focus elsewhere. After all, the Democratic nominee this year doesn't have to go all the way over to the far right for advice on how to construct a more muscular foreign policy. Plenty of mainstream think tanks - from the Center for a New American Security on the center-right to the leftish Center for American Progress - are offering their advice on how to "restore balance" in how the United States relates to the world. Many of these positions - how to push back against Russia, take a harder line against Iran, and ratchet up pressure on Assad in Syria - are not very different from neocon talking points.

But the defections do herald a possible sea change in party alignment. And that will influence the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy.

The Walking Dead

The Republican Party has been hemorrhaging for nearly a decade. The Tea Party dispatched many party centrists - Jim Leach, Richard Lugar - who once could achieve a measure of bipartisanship in Congress. The overwhelming whiteness of the party, even before the ascendance of Trump, made it very difficult to recruit African Americans and Latinos in large numbers. And now Trump has driven away many of the professionals who have served in past Republican administrations, including the small clique of neoconservatives.

What remains is enough to win state and local elections in certain areas of the country. But it's not enough to win nationally. Going forward, with the further demographic shift away from white voters, this Republican base will get older and smaller. Moreover, on foreign policy, the Trumpistas are leading the party in a nationalist, apocalyptic direction that challenges the party leadership (in emphasis if not in content).

It's enough to throw dedicated Republicans into despair. Avik Roy, who was an advisor to the presidential campaigns of Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, and Rick Perry, told This American Life :

I think the Republican Party is a lost cause. I don't think the Republican Party is capable of fixing itself, because the people who are most passionate about voting Republican today are the Trump voters. And what politician is going to want to throw those voters away to attract some unknown coalition of the future?

One of his Republican compatriots, Rob Long, had this to say on the podcast about how anti-Trump survivors who stick with the party will navigate the post-election landscape:

It'll be like The Walking Dead, right? We're going to try to come up with bands of people and walk across the country. And let's not get ourselves killed or eaten and hook up with people we think are not insane or horrible or in some way murderous.

Coming out of this week's elections, here's my guess of what will happen. The Republican Party will continue to be torn apart by three factions: a dwindling number of moderates like Susan Collins (R-ME), right-wing fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan (R-WI), and burn-the-house-down Trumpsters like Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Foreign policy won't be much of an issue for the party because it will be shut out of the White House for 12 years running and will focus instead on primarily domestic questions. Perhaps the latter two categories will find a way to repair their breach; perhaps the party will split in two; perhaps Trump supporters will engineer a hostile takeover.

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, may suffer as a result of its success. After all, how can a single party play host to both Bernie Sanders and Robert Kagan ? How can the party promote both guns and butter? How can Hillary Clinton preserve Obama's diplomatic successes - the Iran deal, the Cuba dιtente, the efforts to contain climate change - and be more assertive militarily? Whatever unity the party managed during the elections will quickly fall apart when it comes to governing.

In one sense, Clinton may well resurrect the neocon legacy by embracing a more or less progressive domestic policy (which would satisfy the Sanderistas) and a more hawkish foreign policy (which would satisfy all the foreign policy mandarins from both parties who supported her candidacy).

At the same time, a new political axis is emerging: internationalists vs. insularists, with the former gathering together in the Democratic Party and the latter seeking shelter in a leaky Republican Party. But this categorization conceals the tensions within each project. Internationalists include both fans of the UN and proponents of unilateral U.S. military engagement overseas. Insularists, who have not turned their back on the world quite as thoroughly as isolationists, include both xenophobic nationalists and those who want to spend war dollars at home.

The trick of it for progressives is to somehow steal back the Democratic Party from the aggressive globalists and recapture those Trump voters who are tired of supporting war and wealthy transnational corporations. Or, perhaps in the wake of the Republican Party's collapse, progressives could create a new party that challenges Clinton and the neocons.

One thing is for certain, however. With a highly unpopular president about to take office and one of the major political parties on life support, the current political moment is highly unstable. Something truly remarkable could emerge. Or voters in 2020 might face something even more monstrous than what has haunted this election cycle.

Crossposted with Foreign Policy In Focus .

[Nov 08, 2016] Hillary's World How Clinton's Foreign Policy Has Destabilized Nearly Every Corner of the Globe - Breitbart

Nov 08, 2016 | www.breitbart.com

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton – as senator, secretary of state, and active partner in the Clinton Foundation – has had the privilege of influencing major players in governments across the globe.

The result of her efforts has largely been the unfettered consolidation of autocratic power, instability (when not total collapse) in vulnerable states, and a global jihadist movement with its own Caliphate infiltrating some of the world's most strategic locations.

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The above map shows the nations of the world Clinton's policies have destabilized and, below, an explanation of why each is labeled the way it is. This is meant to be a comprehensive list, though by no means complete: there are few nations in which an American secretary of state has no influence whatsoever.

Emboldened Autocrats

China

As secretary of state, Clinton presided over a policy known as the " pivot to Asia ," meant to increase American visibility in the continent and, in particular, bring China and the United States closer together. Clinton publicly supported the " one-China policy " – China's way of imposing itself on the Republic of China (Taiwan), Tibet, Hong Kong, and the western Xinjiang region – and encouraged China to buy up U.S. debt .

Following her tenure as secretary of state, Clinton expressed support for incoming president Xi Jinping in private. In a 2013 private speech now public, thanks to the organization WikiLeaks, Clinton said it was "good news" that Xi was "doing much more to try to assert his authority" than his predecessor, Hu Jintao.

Since then, Xi has declared himself the " core " leader, comparable to Mao Zedong ; colonized the maritime territory of six nations in the South China Sea; used state violence to crack down on the nation's skyrocketing Christian population; and engaged in multiple Communist Party purges, citing unspecified " corruption ."

Cuba

Hillary Clinton has loudly supported President Obama's policy to "normalize" relations with Cuba, and her associates maintain close ties to the Washington, D.C., community that benefits from relations with the Castro regime. President Obama's "normalization" has triggered a boom in violent arbitrary arrests of political dissidents and a new wave of refugees seeking to leave the communist dictatorship before the United States changes its mind about treating them as political refugees.

Iran

Hillary Clinton's work to embolden the Iranian Islamic dictatorship began early in her term as secretary of state. During Clinton's tenure, the Obama administration all but ignored the Iranian Green Revolution, a series of protests against then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Clinton's State Department rejected requests for funding from groups doing the work on the grounds of documenting Khamenei's rampant human rights abuses against unarmed protesters.

The Obama administration's crowning achievement in securing the Shiite Caliphate's rule came years later, of course, in the form of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or the Iran nuclear deal. While the parties signed the deal long after her departure from State, Clinton was responsible for "naming the negotiators for the nuclear talks and approving two major U.S. concessions to Iran in 2011 – guaranteeing Iran the right to enrich uranium and agreeing to close the IAEA's investigation of Iran's past nuclear weapons work," according to Fred Fleitz of the Center for Security Policy .

Malaysia

Under Prime Minister Najib Razak, Malaysia has become a hotbed of corruption and, increasingly, radical Islamic sentiment . The Obama administration has, nonetheless, cozied up to Kuala Lumpur, including improving its human rights ratings to make it an eligible partner in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Among the allies Clinton world feared would challenge Clinton, the presidential candidate, on Malaysia were labor leader Richard Trumka and George Soros.

As Secretary of State, Clinton was the first in her office in more than a decade to visit Malaysia as part of President Obama's "Asia pivot" strategy.

North Korea

Secretary of State Clinton approached North Korea with a policy known as " strategic patience ," which one expert described as "sitting back and watching while North Korea continued to build up its nuclear weapons program." North Korea has detonated two nuclear weapons since Clinton has been out of office, in part emboldened by "strategic patience" and in part, many argued after the fourth of five tests, emboldened by the Iranian nuclear deal .

Russia

Clinton has attempted to convince the American people that her arch-rival in the presidential election is Russian President Vladimir Putin, but long before it was politically expedient for her to do so, Clinton was the face of President Obama's "Russian reset" – the one that preceded the collapse of Ukraine – and bragged privately to big-money donors of her close ties to Putin. The strongman trusted her so much, she once boasted, that he invited her to his " inner sanctum ."

Turkey

In her memoir, Hard Choices , Clinton reserved praise from President (then-Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdogan that sounded not unlike her optimistic profiling of Xi Jinping. Erdogan, she said , was "an ambitious, forceful, devout and effective politician." Of his government, she said Erdogan was correct to seek "zero problems with neighbors." WikiLeaks-released emails have since revealed that Erdogan sought to buy influence through campaign donations to the Clintons.

During his tenure as president, Erdogan has advanced the cause of Islamism in Turkey to unprecedented levels since the rule of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, going so far as to allow Islamic prayers in the Hagia Sophia, an iconic Christian landmark. He has also conducted mass arrests of political enemies and shut down numerous media outlets who dare challenge his government . Last Friday, Erdogan's government arrested the leaders of the People's Democratic Party (HDP) – a pro-Kurdish, pro-Christian center-left party – in a midnight raid on dubious "terrorism" charges.

Venezuela

Clinton served as secretary of state during the tail end of the tenure of socialist dictator Hugo Chαvez, who died shortly after she departed. Chαvez presided over a bleak time in Venezuelan history: nationalizing private industries, cozying up to enabling autocrats in Cuba, Iran, and China, and using violence to suppress anti-socialist opposition.

In 2009, Clinton defended negotiating with Chαvez and fostering diplomacy with him, telling a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing that the U.S. should dismiss Chαvez's ties to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and communist China because "we've isolated him, so he's gone elsewhere. I mean, he's a very sociable guy."

Venezuela's economy is now in free fall as dozens of prisoners of conscience languish in prison under Chαvez's hand-picked successor, Nicolαs Maduro. Maduro's management of his own government has been so abysmal that, with Clinton gone, President Obama has declared Venezuela a national security threat .

Emboldened Corruption

Algeria

The government of Algeria is involved in one of the most egregious corruption schemes of the Clinton Foundation: offering the Clintons a $500,000 check. "The donation reportedly coincided with an intense effort by Algeria to lobby Mrs Clinton's State Department over US criticism of its human rights record," The Telegraph notes .

Brazil

Earlier this year, Brazil impeached and ousted its socialist President Dilma Rousseff for a variety of fiscal improprieties, including the misrepresentation of government funds to lure investors. Triggering protests that numbered in the millions, however, was Rousseff's deep involvement in something known as "Operation Car Wash," a sprawling corruption scheme in which dozens of government officials took millions in kickbacks from projects commissioned by the state-run oil company Petrobras.

As secretary of state, Clinton had longtime ties to Rousseff and praised "her commitment to openness, transparency," stating that "her fight against corruption is setting a global standard" in 2012.

Haiti

The Clinton Foundation's exploitation of Haiti's poverty and the damage caused by a 2010 earthquake has left many of those nation's leaders disgusted enough to speak up about the corruption. An operation to aid earthquake victims run by the Clintons was also found to have " played a role " in an unprecedented cholera outbreak in that country.

Kazakhstan

Among the more alarming deals Clinton cut at the State Department was the nuclear deal that handed one-fifth of America's uranium production capacity to Russia. While Russia usurped control of the Uranium One corporation, the Clinton Foundations coffers filled with Russian money.

In addition to Uranium One control, the New York Times reports that Russia gained control of "mines in Kazakhstan that are among the most lucrative in the world."

Morocco

A more recent WikiLeaks reveal shows that the Clinton Foundation received a $12 million donation from the King of Morocco in exchange for Hillary Clinton's presence at a Foundation summit. At the last minute, she did not attend .

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has enjoyed longstanding ties to the Clinton family and donated at least $50 million to the Clinton Foundation. These ties persisted even as Clinton privately admitted she had evidence that Saudi Arabia provided "clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region."

United States

While the Clinton Foundation often served as a laundry service for foreign donations , Clinton fostered questionable ties with plenty of domestic entities, as well. Clinton has raked in millions in donations from big business in America, donors to which she privately promised " open borders ." Clinton's ties to Department of Justice officials in the wake of an investigation into her use of an illicit private server for state business has also raised many questions regarding cronyism and corruption within our own country.

Jihadist Boom

Afghanistan

President Obama famously declared that the war in Afghanistan was over for American soldiers in 2014. The policies that led to that point only exacerbated the damage a vacuum of American power in the nation wrought following the announcement.

Under Clinton, the State Department largely ignored a sprawling corruption problem that left Afghanistan with few resources to combat the Taliban or al-Qaeda. Clinton policies elsewhere in the world also led to the development of an Islamic State presence in the nation.

Currently, U.S. officials warn that the Taliban is stronger than it has been since September 11, 2001.

Indonesia

One of Clinton's first stops as secretary of state was Indonesia, where she proclaimed, "If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity and women's rights can co-exist, go to Indonesia." At the time (2009), her visit was met with chants of "Allahu akbar" and an inauspicious shoe-throwing protest against her.

Since then, Clinton's foreign policy greatly contributed to the creation of the Islamic State, a jihadist group actively courting Indonesian recruits . "Between 300 and 700 Indonesians are believed to have joined the group in Syria and Iraq over the past two years," the BBC reported in July, adding that 30 Indonesian groups had pledged allegiance to Islamic State "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Iraq

Unlike Syria, the collapse of which followed violent acts of oppression by a ruthless tyrant, Iraq's collapse is more closely tied to American foreign policy due to the nation's longtime occupation there. An American presence on the ground in Iraq did more to subdue jihadist elements there than any action to routinely fleeing Iraqi military and its corrupt leadership took.

While Clinton was in office, President Obama withdrew most of America's troops from Iraq, leaving a power vacuum rapidly filled by the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and Iran-backed Shiite militias. Military experts have agreed that a prolonged American presence in the country would have contributed to stability and withdrawing left the nation vulnerable to Islamist colonization.

Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon

The nations surrounding Lake Chad continue to struggle with the rise of Boko Haram, a jihadist group founded in 2002 but active throughout the 2010s in northeast Borno state, Nigeria. Boko Haram is currently the deadliest wing of the Islamic State and responsible for killing an estimated 15,000 and displacing millions. The group rose to international prominence following the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in the Borno region in 2014. Most of these girls remain in captivity, "married" off to Boko Haram jihadists for use as sex slaves.

As secretary of state, Clinton refused to designate Boko Haram, at the time affiliated with al-Qaeda, a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The move severely hindered the Nigerian government's ability to target and neutralize the group, as they could not seek U.S. aid for the mission.

Somalia, Kenya

Clinton traveled to Somalia personally in 2009 t0 offer support against al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group. Following that visit, al-Shabaab made its ties to al-Qaeda public and went on two high-profile rampages against civilians in Kenya: the Westgate Mall massacre in 2013 and the Garissa University attack of 2015. It has since then become a popular enough jihadist group to have found itself the object of courtship of both its al-Qaeda overlords and the Islamic State.

Al-Shabaab has also expanded into Libya now that Libya is a failed state.

The United States did little in those in-between years to subdue al-Shabaab, including a " Yemen-like " drone policy to target leadership and an embarrassing failed raid on an al-Shabaab camp in 2013. Clinton herself merely implored the terrorists to allow humanitarian aid.

Collapse of State

Libya

Clinton's role in the death of Americans, including a U.S. Ambassador, in the September 11, 2012, siege of Benghazi is now well-known. She had a major role in pushing for the decision to support Libya's uprising against dictator Muammar Gadhafi, as well, however – a move President Obama followed up with little strategy to ensure that a stable, secular government would replace Gadhafi. The collapse of the Gadhafi dictatorship has left Libya a failed state, at first governed by two rival parties , but now partially governed by the Islamic State , al-Qaeda , and a variety of Islamist tribal militias.

Clinton has called the collapse of Libya " smart power at its best " and claimed there were " very few civilian casualties " in the fall of Gadhafi.

Syria

The Syrian Civil War began in 2011, during Clinton's stewardship of the State Department. The Secretary reportedly pushed President Obama to arm Sunni Arab Syrian rebels, armed militias that included a high number of jihadist elements, many of whom would move on to fight for the Islamic State. The President reportedly did not heed Clinton's advice , though he failed to do much of anything else, either.

In 2011, however, Clinton referred to dictator Bashar al-Assad as " a reformer " by reputation, whose nascent rule was cause for optimism, casting some doubt on how adamantly she pushed President Obama to arm the Syrian rebels.

Today, Syria remains a land mass governed piecemeal by the Islamic State, Kurdish militias, al-Qaeda linked armed Sunni groups, and the Iranian-Russian-Assad alliance. Assad claimed in an interview earlier this month that Syria is now "much better off" than before the civil war.

Sudan/South Sudan

The creation of South Sudan, the world's youngest nation, was a direct product of Clinton's foreign policy. Years of civil war in Sudan between the northern Muslim population and the Christian south gave way to secession and a war between two nations, not one. By the time Clinton visited in 2012, the Washington Post referred to the refugee crisis there as one of the worst in the world (soon to be eclipsed by the Syrian crisis).

The State Department persisted in aiding the South Sudanese government, even continuing to provide funding after evidence surfaced that the government employed child soldiers . Subsequent reports unveiled that Clinton-related firms received money from the South Sudanese government, as well.

Clinton's State Department support appears to have done little to stabilize South Sudan. Report of mass rape at UN camps are common, and the country is now facing a famine .

Ukraine/Georgia

The Obama administration's tepid responses to Russian colonization of former Soviet states have left Ukraine without its Crimea region and its eastern provinces in collapse. In Georgia, the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia , invaded in 2008, remain under pseudo-Russian control.

Hillary Clinton presided over a "Russian reset" policy meant to dissuade Vladimir Putin from pillaging his neighbors. Clinton even gave her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov a literal "reset button" as a gift, leaving him baffled . The reset succeeded in keeping Russia from obstructing the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal and the invasion of Libya , but did little to convince Putin to change his foreign policy.

Subsequent revelations showed the Clintons taking money from both sides of the Ukraine conflict and being careful of making too tough a stand against Putin's aggression.

Yemen

As secretary of state, Clinton made the first visit as America's top diplomat to Yemen since 1990. There, she told Ali Abdullah Saleh that she would support a program to return al-Qaeda terrorists imprisoned at Guantαnamo Bay, Cuba, to Yemen, while also acknowledging that Yemen was a hotbed of al-Qaeda activity. Saleh is now an ally of the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, which have launched a civil war against current President Abd Rabbo Mansur Hadi. Al-Qaeda is possibly the most stable entity in a nation where 80 percent of civilians live off of humanitarian aid, quadrupling its presence in the nation in a year . Yemen is a failed state torn apart by an emboldened Iran and Saudi Arabia, both major beneficiaries of the Clinton State Department's policies.

The Migrant Crisis

Austria, Belgium, the Balkan nations, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Turkey, Sweden, the UK

The Obama administration's Syria and Libya policies (See above.), executed while Clinton was secretary of state, have triggered a flood of nearly five million displaced Syrians and more than one million Libyans seeking refuge in Europe and the Middle East. Refugees from Afghanistan, Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa, and other volatile regions have added to the masses seeking a new home, rejected in countries like Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia who have criticized the West for being unwelcoming.

[Oct 31, 2016] The Perilous Middle Ground That Clinton Represents

Oct 31, 2016 | www.theamericanconservative.com
notices the dubious "middle ground" rhetoric that is being used to justify Clinton's foreign policy in advance:

All of this loses sight of how much the framing effects have skewed this entire discussion. Bush's signature use of military force and the defining initiative of his presidency-the invasion of Iraq-was an unusually extreme act as measured either by past U.S. foreign policy or standards of international conduct that the United States expects of others.

One of the many flaws in the idea that the U.S. should seek a "middle ground" between Bush and Obama is that it treats their respective records as offering equally damaging and extreme alternatives. Of course, the cost to the U.S. from the two presidencies is drastically different. Bush's legacy was to launch wars that have cost trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives, while Obama's has been his failure to extricate the U.S. from them at a significant but much reduced cost. Obama has certainly made some very serious and even indefensible mistakes (supporting the war on Yemen being among the worst), but in terms of the damage done to U.S. interests the costs have been much lower.

To believe that the U.S. needs to "moderate" between Bush's disasters and Obama's failures is to believe that the U.S. needs a foreign policy that will be even more costly in American lives and money than the one we have right now.

That is not only not a "moderate" position to take, but it is also a highly ideological one that insists on the necessity of U.S. "leadership" no matter how much it costs us.

The 'middle ground" that Clinton offers is no middle ground at all, but rather represents moving the U.S. in the direction of one of the worst foreign policy records in our history. Obama's great foreign policy failure was that he could not or would not move the U.S. away from the disastrous policies of the Bush era, and under Clinton there won't even be the pretense that the U.S. should try to do this.

[Oct 28, 2016] Tom Haydens Haunting by Jim Kavanagh

Oct 28, 2016 | www.counterpunch.org
As an old SDS-er, I found it hard to see Tom Hayden go. However meandering his path, he was at the heart of radical history in the 60s, an erstwhile companion, if not always a comrade, on the route of every boomer lefty.

One of his finer moments for me, which I've never seen mentioned (including among this week's encomia) since he wrote it, was his 2006 article , published on CounterPunch with an introduction by Alexander Cockburn, in which he apologized for a "descent into moral ambiguity and realpolitick that still haunts me today." It would be respectful of Hayden's admirers and critics, on the occasion of his passing, to remember which of his actions "haunted" him the most.

The title of the article says it clearly: "I Was Israel's Dupe." In the essay, Hayden apologizes for his support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was for him that "descent into moral ambiguity" More importantly, he explains why he did it, in a detailed narrative that everyone should read.

Hayden sold out, as he tells it, because, in order to run as a Democratic candidate for the California State Assembly, he had get the approval of the influential Democratic congressman Howard Berman. Berman is a guy who, when he became Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was proud to tell the Forward that he took the job because of his "interest in the Jewish state" and that: "Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist."

Hayden had to meet with Howard's brother Michael, who, acting as "the gatekeeper protecting Los Angeles' Westside for Israel's political interests," told Hayden: "I represent the Israeli Defense Forces"-a sentence that could serve as the motto of most American congress critters today. The "Berman-Waxman machine," Hayden was told, would deign to "rent" him the Assembly seat on the "one condition: that I always be a 'good friend of Israel.'"

But American congressmen were not the only "gatekeepers" through whose hands Hayden had to pass before being allowed to run for Congress. Other "certifiers" included "the elites, beginning with rabbis and heads of the multiple mainstream Jewish organizations, the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), [and].. Israeli ambassadors, counsels general and other officials."

In fact, Hayden had to, in his words, be "declared 'kosher' by the ultimate source, the region's representative of the state of Israel," Benjamin Navon, Israel's Counsul-general in Los Angeles.

In other words, in this article Hayden was describing, in an unusually concrete way, how the state of Israel, through its state officials and their compliant American partners, was effectively managing-exercising veto power over Democratic Party candidates, at the very least-American elections down to the level of State Assembly . In any constituency "attuned to the question of Israel, even in local and state elections," Hayden knew he "had to be certified 'kosher,' not once but over and over again."

This experience prompted Hayden to express a "fear that the 'Israeli lobby' is working overtime to influence American public opinion on behalf of Israel's military effort to 'roll back the clock' and 'change the map' of the region." Hayden warned of the "trepidation and confusion among rank-and-file voters and activists, and the paralysis of politicians, especially Democrats," over support of Israel. He vowed to "not make the same mistake again," and said: "Most important, Americans must not be timid in speaking up, as I was 25 years ago."

Whatever else he did-and he was never particularly radical about Palestine-this article was a genuinely honest and unusual intervention, and it deserves a lot more notice-as a moment in Tom Hayden's history and that of the American left-than it has got. Looking back and regretfully acknowledging that one had been duped and morally compromised by what seemed the least troublesome path 25 years earlier, saying "I woulda, shoulda, coulda done the right thing," is a haunting moment for anyone. Doing it in a way that exposes in detail how a foreign country constantly manipulates American elections over decades is worthy of everyone's notice.

I doubt Hillary and her Democratic supporters will have anything to say about this "interference "in American elections, even local and state. But I do hope many of those who are touched by the loss of Tom Hayden heed these words from him, and don't wait another 25 years to overcome their "fear and confusion" about saying and doing the right thing regarding the crimes of Israel, troublesome as that might be.

[Oct 26, 2016] There are some countervailing forces in action and the Triumphal march of neoliberalism with the USA as the hegemon of the new neoliberal order is either over, or soon will be over

Notable quotes:
"... Any analysis that starts with the assumption reactionaries still has a great deal to its agenda to achieve, such as promoting regressive taxation; privatization of Social Security; limiting Medicare; privatization of education; expansion of the police state; using the military to support the dollar, banking, world markets, etc., rather than Corey Robin's belief that "the Right" has won is in my view an improvement on the OP. ..."
"... In the end, Putin will be done in by his oligarchs, despite the care he has taken to give them their share if they just refrain from wrecking everything with their excesses. Again, no need for NGOs. ..."
Oct 26, 2016 | crookedtimber.org
stevenjohnson

@58

This is a very good analyses. But I am less pessimistic: the blowback against neoliberal globalization is real and it is difficult to swipe it under the carpet.

There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare" trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient bogeyman.

As somebody here said Trump might be a reaction of secular stagnation, kind of trump card put into play by some part of the elite, because with continued secular stagnation, the social stability in the USA is under real threat.

But it looks like newly formed shadow "Committee for Saving [neo]Liberal Order" (with participation of three latter agencies, just read the recent "Red scare" memorandum ( https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement ) want Hillary to be the POTUS.

But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease. But that might make her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo male politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).

All-in-all it looks like she in not a solution for neoliberal elite problems, she is a part of the problem

Adventurism of the US neoliberal elite, and especially possible aggressive moves in Syria by Hillary regime ("no fly zone"), makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely (with Pakistan, Iran and India as possible future members). So Hillary might really work like a powerful China lobbyist, because the alliance with Russia will be on China terms.

Regime change via color revolution in either country requires at dense network of subservient to the Western interests and financed via shadow channels MSM (including TV channels), strong network of NGO and ability to distribute cash to selected members of the fifth column of neoliberal globalization. All those condition were made more difficult in Russia and impossible in mainland China. In Russia the US adventurism in Ukraine and the regime change of February 2014 (creation of neo-fascist regime nicknamed by some "Kaganat of Nuland" (Asia Times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-100315.html )) essentially killed the neoliberal fifth column in Russia and IMHO it no longer represent a viable political force.

Also Russians probably learned well lesson of unsuccessful attempt of regime change by interfering into Russian Presidential election process attempted by Hillary and Obama in 2011-2012. I would like to see the US MSM reaction if Russian ambassador invited Sanders and Trump into the embassy and promised full and unconditional support for their effort to remove criminal Obama regime, mired in corruption and subservient to Wall Street interests, the regime that produced misery for so many American workers, lower middle class and older Americans ;-)

Ambassador McFaul soon left the country, NED was banned and screws were tightened enough to make next attempt exceedingly difficult. Although everything can happen I would discount the possibility of the next "White Revolution" in Russia. So called "Putin regime" survived the period of low oil prices and with oil prices over $60 in 2017 Russian economy might be able to grow several percent a year. At the same time the US "post-Obama" regime might well face the winds of returning higher oil prices and their negative influence of economy growth and unemployment.

In China recent troubles in Hong Cong were also a perfect training ground for "anti color revolution" measures and the next attempt would much more difficult, unless China experience economic destabilization due to some bubble burst.

That means that excessive military adventurism inherent in the future Hillary regime might speed up loss by the USA military dominance and re-alignment of some states beyond Philippines. Angela Merkel regime also might not survive the next election and that event might change "pro-Atlantic" balance in Europe.

Although the list in definitely not complete, we can see that there are distinct setbacks for attempts of further neoliberalization beyond Brexit and TPP troubles.

So there are some countervailing forces in action and my impression that the Triumphal march of neoliberalism with the USA as the hegemon of the new neoliberal order is either over, or soon will be over. In certain regions of the globe the USA foreign policy is in trouble (Syria, Ukraine) and while you can do anything using bayonets, you can't sit on them.

So while still there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism as a social system, the ideology itself is discredited and like communism after 1945 lost its hold of hearts and minds of the USA population. I would say that in the USA neoliberalism entered Zombie stage.

My hope is that reasonable voices in foreign policy prevail, and the disgust of unions members toward DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats) could play the decisive role in coming elections. As bad as Trump is for domestic policy, it represent some hope as for foreign policy unless co-opted by Republican establishment.

Val 10.26.16 at 3:54 am 72

#70
But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease. But that might kale her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo her male politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).

Does the new CT moderation regime have any expectations about the veracity of claims made by commenters? Because I think it would be useful in cases like this.

Howard Frant 10.26.16 at 6:19 am ( 73 )

Stephen @58

Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest. That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.

phenomenal cat @64

So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do.

Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them. Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)

Layman 10.26.16 at 11:33 am ( 79 )

' .makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely '

Any analysis which arrives at this conclusion is profoundly ignorant.

Meta-comment: Is it permitted to say that a moderation scheme which objects to engels as a troll, while permitting this tripe from likbez has taken a wrong turn somewhere. Seriously, some explanation called for.

likbez 10.26.16 at 3:54 pm 80

@72

Does the new CT moderation regime have any expectations about the veracity of claims made by commenters? Because I think it would be useful in cases like this.

I would like to apologize about the number of typos, but I stand by statements made. Your implicit assumption that I am lying was not specific, so let's concentrate on three claims made:

1. "Hillary has serious neurological disease for at least four years",
2. "Obama and Hillary tried to stage color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012 interfering in Russian Presidential elections"
3. "Hillary Clinton is a neocon, a warmonger similar to John McCain"

1. Hillary Health : Whether she suffers from Parkinson disease or not in unclear, but signs of some serious neurological disease are observable since 2012 (for four years). Parkinson is just the most plausible hypothesis based on symptoms observed. Those symptoms suggests that she is at Stage 2 of the disease due to an excellent treatment she gets:

http://www.viartis.net/parkinsons.disease/news/100312.htm
The average time taken to progress from Stage 1 (mild) to Stage 2 (mild but various symptoms) was 1 year 8 months. The average time taken to progress from Stage 2 to Stage 3 (typical) was 7 years and 3 months. From Stage 3 to Stage 4 (severe) took 2 years. From Stage 4 to Stage 5 (incapacitated) took 2 years and 2 months. So the stage with typical symptoms lasts the longest. Those factors associated with faster progression were older age at diagnosis, and longer disease duration. Gender and ethnicity were not associated with the rate of Parkinson's Disease progression.

These figures are only averages. Progression is not inevitable. Some people with Parkinson's Disease have either : stayed the same for decades, reduced their symptoms, rid their symptoms, or worsened at a rapid rate. For more current news go to Parkinson's Disease News.

Concern about Hillary health were voiced in many publications and signs of her neurological disease are undisputable:

2. Hillary and Obama attempt to stage the color revolution in Russia in 2011-2012 are also undisputable, but not widely known:

3. The opinion that Hillary as a neocon is supported by facts from all her career , but especially during her tenure as the Secretary of State. She voted for Iraq war and was instrumental in unleashing Libya war and Syria war. The amount of evidence can't be ignored:

If you have more specific concerns please voice them and I will try to support my statements with references and known facts.


stevenjohnson 10.26.16 at 1:50 pm

likbez @70 Any analysis that starts with the assumption reactionaries still has a great deal to its agenda to achieve, such as promoting regressive taxation; privatization of Social Security; limiting Medicare; privatization of education; expansion of the police state; using the military to support the dollar, banking, world markets, etc., rather than Corey Robin's belief that "the Right" has won is in my view an improvement on the OP. But whether mine is actually a deep analysis seems doubtful even to me.

But the OP is really limiting itself solely to domestic politics, and in that context the resistance to "neoliberal globalization," (Why not use the term "imperialism?") is more or less irrelevant. The OP seems to have some essentialist notion of the "Right" as openly aimed at restoring the past, ignoring the content of policies. Reaction would be something blatant like restoring censorship of TV and movies, instead of IP laws that favor giant telecommunications companies, or abolition of divorce, instead of discriminatory enforcement of child protection laws that break up poor families. This cultural/psychological/moralizing/spiritual approach seems to me to be fundamentally a diversion from a useful understanding.

There may be some sort of confused notions about popular morals and tastes clearly evolving in a more leftish direction. Free love was never a conservative principle for instance, yet many of its tenets are now those of the majority of the population. Personally I can only observe that there's nothing quite like the usefulness of laws and law enforcement, supplemented by the occasional illicit violence, to change social attitudes. The great model of course is the de facto extermination of the Left by "McCarthyism." No doubt the disappearance of the left targeted by "McCarthyism" is perceived to be a purification of the real left. It is customary for the acceptable "left" to agree with the McCarthys that communism lost its appeal to the people, rather than being driven out by mass repression. As to populism, such reactionary goals as the abolition of public education are notoriously sold as service to the people against the hifalutin' snobs, starting of course with lazy ass teachers. It seems to me entirely mistaken to see the populist reactionaries as out of ammunition because the old forms of race-baiting aren't working so well.

By the way, there already is a Chinese bourgeoisie, in Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, as well as elements in SEZs in China proper and select circles in various financial capitals. Restoration of capitalism in China has run into the difficulty that capitalism isn't holding up its end. President Xi Jinping is finding it difficult for capitalism to keep the mainland economy growing at a sufficiently rapid rate to keep the working class pacific, much less generate the so-called middle class whose stock market portfolios will bind them to the new ruling class forever. These are the sources for a revolution in China, not NGOs or a color revolution. In the end, Putin will be done in by his oligarchs, despite the care he has taken to give them their share if they just refrain from wrecking everything with their excesses. Again, no need for NGOs.

Val @72 I remember that there were only rare, vague hints about Reagan, not factual evidence. So unless you are committed to the proposition his Alzheimer's disease only set in January 21, 1992, demanding factual evidence about the mental and physical health of our elective divinities seems unduly restrictive I think.

Layman @79 The Shanghai Cooperation Organization alone makes an analysis that a military alliance between Russia and China reasonable enough. Even if incorrect in the end, it is not "profoundly ignorant."

Meta-comment: Engels post was perceived as mocking, which was its offense. As for "trolling," that's an internet thing...

[Oct 25, 2016] Urged by neoliberal elite, Hillary Clinton administration might be ever more destabilizing due to desperate adventures both in domestic and especially foreign policy

Notable quotes:
"... There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare" trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient bogeyman. ..."
"... But it looks like newly formed shadow "Committee for Saving [neo]Liberal Order" (with participation of three latter agencies, just read the recent "Red scare" memorandum ( https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement ) want Hillary to be the POTUS. ..."
Oct 25, 2016 | crookedtimber.org

stevenjohnson 10.25.16 at 1:00 pm

Six reasons for pessimism?

1. An ABC news poll says that Clinton has 50% of somebody (the electorate, likely voters?) supporting her rabidly reactionary rhetoric. She demonizes Putin, imputes treason to a major party candidate in a way hitherto seen only in Birch Society attacks on Eisenhower, shrieks that it is utterly impossible to even hint that the current electoral system has no real legitimacy.

The only real criticisms acceptable in the face of her reactionary screeds are hints that she is a traitor for Clinton Foundation cash and that she is lax on security . (The claim that Clinton is pro-war are regressions to the Obama primary campaign in 2008. Since he promptly proved the irrelevance of an anti-war rhetoric, the observations that Clinton has none are equally irrelevant.)

2. The high levels of indecision suggest that a Trump defeat may well leave the Republican establishment more or less as it was. Depending on turnout, which even at this late date is highly uncertain, it is entirely possible the Republicans will maintain control of the Senate. At this point it is probable they will keep the House. In any event, Clinton has openly committed to a bipartisan a campaign against the Trump hijacking of the Republican party.

3. Consider the longevity of reactionary leaderships in the major parties. The Democratic Leadership Council approach has dominated its party for decades. The Republican party projects like ALEC, the Federalist Society, the Mighty Wurlitzer, the designated superstar talk personality (no, shifting from Limbaugh to Beck is not a sea change,) everywhere you look behind the scenes you see the same faces. What new faces appear turn out (like Obama) to be employees of the same old political establishments. Alleged exceptions like Sanders and Warren are notable primarily for their lack of commitment.

4. There are bold thinkers willing to imagine the conservative future. Think Jason Brennan and his book Against Democracy. Even worse, the real strength of the conservatives lies in the bottom line, not in polemics. Tragically, it's when the bottom line is written in read that it shrieks the loudest, with the most conviction and the most urgent desire for the masters to unite against the rest of us.

5. California politics has set the pace once again, demonstrating the absolute irrelevance of a "Left" defined as a spiritual posture. The annihilation of an ugly materialist Left by "McCarthyism" has purified the souls of the righetous, leaving socialism/communism unthinkable. California leftism is entirely safe for capitalism, imperialism and a free market of ideas where the refined consumers of ideas can have their gated neighborhoods of ideas.

6. The majority support for a more tolerant society makes no difference in policy. Being nicer is not politics.

There is a fundamental reason for despair, the failures of the right to win the Holy Grail of a functional capitalist society. Despite their successes in destroying organized labor (with the help of counter-revolutionary "leftists" to be sure,) in limiting women's rights, in blunting the real world effects of desegregation, the short-run prospects of capital are disquieting. And the long run prospects, insofar as these people can see past the quarterly statement, are even more frightening. Urged by their fears, the system will be ever more destabilized by desperate adventures. The replacement of Social Security of course will be high on the agenda. The absolutely vital need for ever more control over the world, including regime change in Russia and China, has driven foreign policy in direct support of the dollar and banking since at least Bush 41.

But in the end, it is not the madness of the owners that is the cause for despair, but the absolute indifference of the spiritual leftists who have joined in the rabidly reactionary campaign against Clinton from the right. (You would have thought it rather difficult to criticize Clinton from the right, but never underestimate the exigencies of struggle against totalitarianism.) Win or lose, this campaign has endorsed reaction, top to bottom. On the upside, the likelihood of a Clinton impeachment offers much value for your entertainment dollar.

likbez 10.26.16 at 1:10 am

stevenjohnson

@58

This is a very good analyses. But I am less pessimistic: the blowback against neoliberal globalization is real and it is difficult to swipe it under the carpet.

There are some signs of the "revolutionary situation" in the USA in a sense that the neoliberal elite lost control and their propaganda loss effectiveness, despite dusting off the "Red scare" trick with "Reds in each computer" instead of "Reds under each bed". With Putin as a very convenient bogeyman.

As somebody here said Trump might be a reaction to secular stagnation, kind of trump card put into play by some part of the elite, because with continued secular stagnation, the social stability in the USA is under a real threat.

But it looks like newly formed shadow "Committee for Saving [neo]Liberal Order" (with participation of three latter agencies, just read the recent "Red scare" memorandum ( https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-press-releases-2016/1423-joint-dhs-odni-election-security-statement ) want Hillary to be the POTUS.

But the problem is that Hillary with her failing health is our of her prime and with a bunch of neocons in key positions in her administration, she really represents a huge threat to world peace. She might not last long as the level of stress inherent in POTUS job make it a killing ground for anybody with advanced stage of Parkinson or similar degenerative neurological disease. But that might kale her more impulsive and more aggressive (and she always tried to outdo her male politicians in jingoism, real John McCain is the red pantsuit).

All-in-all it looks like she in not a solution of neoliberal elite problems, she is a part of the problem

Adventurism of the US neoliberal elite, and especially possible aggressive moves in Syria by Hillary regime ("no fly zone"), makes military alliance of Russia and China very likely (with Pakistan, Iran and India as possible future members). So Hillary might really work like a powerful China lobbyist, because the alliance with Russia will be on China terms.

Regime change via color revolution in either country requires at dense network of subservient to the Western interests and financed via shadow channels MSM (including TV channels), NGO and ability to distribute cash to selection members of fifth column of neoliberalism. All those condition were made more difficult in Russia and impossible in mainland China. In Russia the US adventurism in Ukraine and the regime change of February 2014 (creation of neo-fascist regime nicknamed by some "Kaganat of Nuland" (Asia times http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-100315.html ) essentially killed the neoliberal fifth column in Russia and IMHO it no longer represent a viable political force.

Also Russians probably learned well lesson of unsuccessful attempt of regime change by interfering into Russian Presidential election process attempted by Hillary and Obama in 2011-2012. I would like to see the US MSM reaction if Russian ambassador invited Sanders and Trump into the embassy and promised full and unconditional support for their effort to remove criminal Obama regime, mired in corruption and subservient to Wall Street interest, the regime that produced misery for so many American workers, lower middle class and older Americans ;-)

Ambassador McFaul soon left the country, NED was banned and screws were tightened enough to make next attempt exceedingly difficult. Although everything can happen I would discount the possibility of the next "While Revolution" in Russia. So called "Putin regime" survived the period of low oil prices and with oil prices over $60 in 2017 Russian economy might be able to grow several percent a year. At the same time the US "post-Obama" regime might well face the winds of returning higher oil prices and their negative influence of economy growth and unemployment.

In China recent troubles in Hong Cong were also a perfect training ground for "anti color revolution" measures and the next attempt would much more difficult, unless China experience economic destabilization due to some bubble burst.

that means that excessive military adventurism inherent in the future Hillary regime might speed up loss by the USA military dominance and re-alignment of some states beyond Philippines. Angela Merkel regime also might not survive the next election and change "pro-Atlantic" balance in Europe.

Although the list in definitely not complete, we can see that there are distinct setbacks for attempts of further neoliberalization - Brexit and TPP troubles.

So there are some countervailing forces in action and my impression that the Triumphal march of neoliberalism with the USA as a hegemon of the new neoliberal order is either over or soon will be over. In certain regions of the globe the USA foreign policy is in trouble (Syria, Ukraine) and while you can do anything using bayonets, you can't sit on them.

So while still there is no viable alternative to neoliberalism as social system, the ideology itself is discredited and like communism after 1945 lost its hold of hearts and minds of the USA population. I would say that in the USA neoliberalism entered Zombie stage.

My hope is that reasonable voices in foreign policy prevail, and the disgust of unions members toward DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats) could play the decisive role in coming elections. As bad as Trump is for domestic policy, it represent some hope as for foreign policy unless co-opted by Republican establishment.

[Oct 25, 2016] My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles

Oct 25, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

likbez : October 24, 2016 at 12:00 PM My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles.

She is way too militant, and is not that different in this respect from Senator McCain. That creates a real danger of unleashing the war with Russia.

Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some kind of dιtente with Russia.

In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary. Reply Monday, October 24, 2016 at 12:00 PM DeDude -> likbez... , October 24, 2016 at 12:17 PM

You wish, you wish - you wish you were a fish, called Wanda.
Julio -> likbez... , October 24, 2016 at 01:32 PM
A vote for Hilary may indeed be a vote for the (a?) war party, but it is not, unfortunately, incompatible with democratic principles.
ilsm -> Julio ... , October 24, 2016 at 03:19 PM
at least LBJ kept it under wraps.........
likbez -> Julio ... , October 24, 2016 at 06:25 PM
Why do you think "wet kiss with neocons" is compatible with democratic principles ?
Julio -> likbez... , -1
Because the neocons have convinced a lot of the people (you know, the "demos" in "democracy") of the need for perpetual war.
Dan Kervick -> likbez... , October 24, 2016 at 01:36 PM
Just a hunch: a lot of this hoo-hah will simmer down after the election.

But yeah, I'm really bummed that we are going to be seeing a return of a lot of the same creeps who gave us the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03.

Just a reminder: I called attention several times to this article in 2014 and 2015:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

But most of the liberal bloggers obediently kept their mouths shut about it.

anne -> Dan Kervick... , October 24, 2016 at 02:56 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html

July 5, 2014

The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
By JACOB HEILBRUNN

WASHINGTON - AFTER nearly a decade in the political wilderness, the neoconservative movement is back, using the turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President Obama, not the movement's interventionist foreign policy that dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that bears responsibility for the current round of global crises.

Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be preparing a more brazen feat: aligning themselves with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign, in a bid to return to the driver's seat of American foreign policy.

To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older generation of neocons - Paul D. Wolfowitz, L. Paul Bremer III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle - are permanently buried in the sands of Iraq. And not all of them are eager to switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would "be a dutiful chaperone of further American decline."

But others appear to envisage a different direction - one that might allow them to restore the neocon brand, at a time when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning away from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.

It's not as outlandish as it may sound. Consider the historian Robert Kagan, the author of a recent, roundly praised article in The New Republic that amounted to a neo-neocon manifesto. He has not only avoided the vitriolic tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren but also co-founded an influential bipartisan advisory group during Mrs. Clinton's time at the State Department.

Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at standard-issue neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, that citadel of liberalism headed by Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under President Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate to become secretary of state in a new Democratic administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article "magisterial," in what amounts to a public baptism into the liberal establishment.)

Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have insisted on maintaining the link between modern neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War liberalism. Among other things, he has frequently praised Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a line from him straight to the neocons' favorite president: "It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan whose policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."

Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,noted in The New Republic this year that "it is clear that in administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya."

And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler...

ilsm -> Dan Kervick... , October 24, 2016 at 03:22 PM
Anne and I have seen this for a while.

Nothing new Strobe Talbott was closeted, and brought Mrs Kagan aka Victoria Nuland in to State in 1993.

Bill bearded the bear breaking Kosovo and Bosi=nia out of Serbia...........

The down payment for Kyiv in 2012 was in 1996.

likbez -> ilsm... , October 24, 2016 at 05:47 PM
Nuland occupies a special place among neocons.

This former associate of Dick Cheney managed to completely destroy pretty nice European county, unleashing the horror of real starvation on the population.

Ukraine now is essentially Central African country in the middle of the Europe. Retirees often live on less then $1 a day. most adults (and lucky retirees) on less then $3 a day. $6 a day is considered a high salary. At the same time "oligarchs" drive on Maybachs, and personal jets.

Sex tourism is rampant. Probably the only "profession" that prospered since "Maydan".

Young people try to get university education and emigrate to any county that would accept them (repeating the story of Baltic countries and Poland).

Now this a typical IMF debt slave with no chances to get out of the hole.

Politically this is now a protectorate of the USA with the USA ambassador as the real, de-facto ruler of the country. Much like Kosovo is.

Standard of living dropped approximately three times since 2014.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraines-perpetual-war-perpetual-peace-17614

"If the country continues on its present course, Odessa's reformist governor Mikheil Saakashvili has noted sarcastically, Ukraine will not reach the level of GDP it had under former president Viktor Yanukovych for another fifteen years"


"In Kiev, which is by far the wealthiest city in Ukraine, payment arrears for electricity have risen by 32 percent since the beginning of this year."

[Oct 25, 2016] Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton? No question about it. She is one of them.

Oct 25, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

anne -> Dan Kervick... October 24, 2016 at 02:56 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html

July 5, 2014

The Next Act of the Neocons
Are Neocons Getting Ready to Ally With Hillary Clinton?
By JACOB HEILBRUNN

WASHINGTON - AFTER nearly a decade in the political wilderness, the neoconservative movement is back, using the turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President Obama, not the movement's interventionist foreign policy that dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that bears responsibility for the current round of global crises.

Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be preparing a more brazen feat: aligning themselves with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign, in a bid to return to the driver's seat of American foreign policy.

To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older generation of neocons - Paul D. Wolfowitz, L. Paul Bremer III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle - are permanently buried in the sands of Iraq. And not all of them are eager to switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would "be a dutiful chaperone of further American decline."

But others appear to envisage a different direction - one that might allow them to restore the neocon brand, at a time when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning away from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.

It's not as outlandish as it may sound. Consider the historian Robert Kagan, the author of a recent, roundly praised article in The New Republic that amounted to a neo-neocon manifesto. He has not only avoided the vitriolic tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren but also co-founded an influential bipartisan advisory group during Mrs. Clinton's time at the State Department.

Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at standard-issue neocon think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, that citadel of liberalism headed by Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under President Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate to become secretary of state in a new Democratic administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article "magisterial," in what amounts to a public baptism into the liberal establishment.)

Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have insisted on maintaining the link between modern neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War liberalism. Among other things, he has frequently praised Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a line from him straight to the neocons' favorite president: "It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan whose policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."

Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism and respect for Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted in The New Republic this year that "it is clear that in administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya."

And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf Hitler...

ilsm -> Dan Kervick... , October 24, 2016 at 03:22 PM
Anne and I have seen this for a while. Nothing new Strobe Talbott was closeted [neocon], and brought Mrs Kagan aka Victoria Nuland in to State in 1993.

Bill bearded the bear breaking Kosovo and Bosinia out of Serbia... The down payment for Kyiv in 2012 was in 1996.

likbez -> ilsm... , October 24, 2016 at 05:47 PM
Nuland occupies a special place among neocons.

This former associate of Dick Cheney managed to completely destroy pretty nice European county, unleashing the horror of real starvation on the population.

Ukraine now is essentially Central African country in the middle of the Europe. Retirees often live on less then $1 a day. most adults (and lucky retirees) on less then $3 a day. $6 a day is considered a high salary. At the same time "oligarchs" drive on Maybachs, and personal jets.

Sex tourism is rampant. Probably the only "profession" that prospered since "Maydan".

Young people try to get university education and emigrate to any county that would accept them (repeating the story of Baltic countries and Poland).

Now this a typical IMF debt slave with no chances to get our the hole.

Politically this is now a protectorate of the USA with the USA ambassador as the real, de-facto ruler of the county. Much like Kosovo is.

Standard of living dropped approximately three times since 2014.

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraines-perpetual-war-perpetual-peace-17614

"If the country continues on its present course, Odessa's reformist governor Mikheil Saakashvili has noted sarcastically, Ukraine will not reach the level of GDP it had under former president Viktor Yanukovych for another fifteen years"

"In Kiev, which is by far the wealthiest city in Ukraine, payment arrears for electricity have risen by 32 percent since the beginning of this year."

[Oct 24, 2016] Hillary might be a symptom of degenerate neoliberal aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Gen. Butler book War Is A Racket is still a classic book on the subject

Oct 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> to pgl ... October 23, 2016 at 04:10 AM

Ruling elite has a crook for a candidate appealing to fears and prefers her wars for oil to be with Russia.

DrDick -> ilsm ... October 23, 2016 at 08:54 AM , 2016 at 08:54 AM

More stupidity. First off, the American elite (like all elites) is far from unitary and most of them back Republicans, though they hedge their bets by also supporting centrist Democrats.
ilsm -> DrDick... , October 23, 2016 at 11:25 AM
Greed is a unifier. What they said on SNL opening skit...... Klinton is the republican.
anne : , October 23, 2016 at 05:23 AM
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/790154851682545665

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald

Exploiting Cold War rhetoric & tactics has helped her win the election. I guess the idea is: deal with the aftermath and fallout later.

Katrina vandenHeuvel @KatrinaNation

How does new Cold War-- which ends space for dissent, hurts women & children, may lead to nuclear war--help what Clinton claims she is for?

4:36 AM - 23 Oct 2016

EMichael -> anne... , October 23, 2016 at 05:28 AM
I would submit that there are very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick. Greenwald keeps falling and cannot get up.
ilsm -> EMichael...
Few "will [move the] vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick.

Those "few" were awake during the 80's and see the nuclear/neocon dystopian horror behind Clinton. While Trump mentioned using nukes, Hillary's nuke policy is 'well' laid out by Robert Kagan and the hegemon interests.

Recall Mao said "go ahead......' Nukes are just another form of the pointless body count strategy.

likbez -> ilsm...
Like before WWI, Hillary might be "a symptom of degenerate [neoliberal] aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power." Gen. Butler, "War Is A Racket." is still a classic book on the subject.

See an interesting discussion at

http://crookedtimber.org/2016/10/22/unnecessary-wars/#comments

Here are a couple of comments
== quote ===

greg 10.22.16 at 11:02 pm ( 29 )

All war is for profit. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought for profit. The profit from Iraqi oil and whatever was expected from Afghanistan were irrelevant. Weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban, even Isis, were and are all issues that could have been more efficiently handled, but instead were pretexts to convince the credulous of the necessity of war.

The real profit was the profit taken by the military-political-industrial complex in the treasure and stolen rights of the American people. That is the bottom line for why we went to war, and why we are still there, and why, if our elites persist, we might go to war with Russia or China.

The good news is that, because of the unrelenting depredations by American elites on the treasure and rights of the people, the United States is increasingly unable to wage war effectively. The bad news is that our elites are too blind to see this.

America: Consuming your future today.

====

Peter T 10.23.16 at 8:56 am

faustusnotes

fear of "socialism" – meaning, broadly, greater popular participation in politics – was explicitly a major factor in the German and Russian decisions for war. In both cases, they hoped victory would shore up increasingly fragile conservative dominance. It also underlay British and French attitudes. 1870-1914 was a very stressful time for elites.

1915 was too early for any of the combatants to settle. By mid-late 1916 there were some voices in favour of negotiations, but the Germans would have none of it then or in 1917. By the time the Germans were prepared to talk (mid 1918), they had lost. Fear of socialism was again a major factor in the post-war settlements.

Liberals of today see World War I as the great disaster that shattered the pre-war liberal order. In the same way, the generation post 1815 saw the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as the great disaster that shattered the happy old order. The extent of the damage and loss was much the same in each, although World War I took 5 years to do what the French wars did in 25.

===

Omega Centauri 10.23.16 at 1:13 am ( 33 )

The decision to continue it seems to be a natural consequence of the human proclivity towards doubling down. This operates on many levels, some of which are related to the need for vindication of those involved in the decision to start the conflict.

There is also the horror that if you end a war without achieving something the masses can identify with as victory, then the families of those killed will see that their loved ones died in vain -- for someone else's mistake (very bad for your political future).

And of course if you quit, what is to stop the enemy from extracting reparations or worse from you, because in his eyes, you are the criminal party. Much easier to try yet one more offensive, or to lure a formerly neutral party into joining in and opening up another front, which you hope will break the stalemate.

The thing that appalls me so much about the Great War, is how so many nations were dragged in, by promises of booty . In many ways it resembles the Peloponnisian war, in its inability to allow neutrals to be neutrals.

[Oct 24, 2016] New generation forget about the horrors of previous wars and internationalist idea does not survive the new war first hours, let alone first weeks

Notable quotes:
"... Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. ..."
"... It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France. ..."
"... And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? ..."
"... That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks. ..."
"... Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result. ..."
"... Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were. ..."
"... Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case. ..."
"... the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war. ..."
"... I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When? ..."
"... It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes. ..."
"... If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences. ..."
"... The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.) ..."
crookedtimber.org

bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:46 pm ( 25 )

The case against war was fully developed and strongly argued in the years before 1914 . . .

Was it? I wonder about that.

Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. It is on this point that I think arguments from before the war cannot have the weight the horror of experience must give them. Elite leadership across Europe failed.

It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France.

It is inexplicable, really, unless you can see that the moral and practical case against war is not fully developed between the wars; if there's a critique that made use of experience in its details in the 1920s and 1930s and made itself heard, I missed it - it seems like opposites of such an appreciation triumph.

And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? There's certainly a socialist argument against war, based on the illegitimacy of war's class divisions, which were conveniently exemplified in military rank and reactionary attitudes among the officer class. That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks.

Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result.


bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:47 pm.26

Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were.

Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case.

Without looking it up I recall Barbara Tuchman using the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war.

I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When?

The long effort by reactionary forces to assemble a coalition capable of defeating Napoleon had created in Europe what for a time was called the Concert of Europe. Austria, Prussia and Russia initially cooperated in suppressing liberal and nationalist aspirations and that effort gradually morphed into efforts to harness or channel rising liberalism and nationalism and industrial power.

It was the evolved apparatus descended from Metternich's Congress of Vienna thru Bismarck's Congress of Berlin that made wars brief and generally decisive in regard to some policy end.

The long list of successive crises and brief wars that stevenjohnson references above - often cited as evidence of the increasing fragility of the general peace - could just as well be cited as evidence for the continued effectiveness of the antique Concert of Europe in containing and managing the risk of general war. (Fashoda 1898, Venezuela 1902, Russo-Japanese War 1905, Agadir 1911, Balkan Wars 1911-1912 - it can be a very long list).

It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes.

If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences.

It was one of the mechanisms for peace by international law - the neutrality of Belgium mutually guaranteed by Britain and Germany in the Treaty of London 1839 - that triggered Britain's entry as an Allied Power and general war. There is, of course, no particular reason Australia should have taken an interest in Belgium's neutrality, but it was that issue that seemed to compel the consensus of opinion in favor of war in Britain's government.

The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.)

What I don't find is the alternative lever or mechanism at the ready, put in place by this fully developed argument against war. The mechanism in place was the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by international law (arguably reinforced in the stipulations of the Hague Conference of 1907). If Germany doesn't violate Belgian neutrality, the result in the West at least is stalemate as France and Germany are evenly matched across their narrow and mostly impassable frontier; in the East, Russia must concede to Germany even as Austria must concede to Russia; - instead of a general conflagration, the result is another negotiated settlement of some sort, perhaps arbitrated by Britain or the U.S.

The urgent questions of the day regarding the organization of modern liberal polities in the territories of Ottoman Turkey, Hapsburg Austria and Czarist Russia - what is the strongly argued and fully developed case there? How is the cause of Polish nationalism, or Finnish nationalism or Yugoslav nationalism to be handled or managed without violence and war?

The antique system of a Concert of Europe had kinda sorta found a way by means of short and decisive engagements followed by multi-power negotiation, a pattern that had continued with the gradual emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. But, where was the argument for managing irredentism and nationalist aspiration peacefully?

[Oct 24, 2016] Possible return of the same neocons who gave us the foreign policy of the late 1990th that went belly up in 2001

They are the same neocon creeps... They forgot nothing and learn nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles. ..."
"... Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some kind of dιtente with Russia. ..."
"... In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary. ..."
"... Why do you think "wet kiss with neocons" is compatible with democratic principles ? ..."
"... I'm really bummed that we are going to be seeing a return of a lot of the same creeps who gave us the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03. ..."
"... But most of the liberal bloggers obediently kept their mouths shut about it. ..."
Oct 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

likbez :

My impression is that that key issue is as following: a vote for Hillary is a vote for the War Party and is incompatible with democratic principles.

Trump with all his warts gives us a chance to get some kind of dιtente with Russia.

In other words no real Democrat can vote for Hillary.

Julio -> likbez... , October 24, 2016 at 01:32 PM
A vote for Hilary may indeed be a vote for the (a?) war party, but it is not, unfortunately, incompatible with democratic principles.

likbez -> Julio...

Why do you think "wet kiss with neocons" is compatible with democratic principles ?

ilsm -> Julio ... , October 24, 2016 at 03:19 PM
at least LBJ kept it under wraps.........
Dan Kervick -> likbez... , 2016 at 02:56 PM
Just a hunch: a lot of this hoo-hah will simmer down after the election.

But yeah, I'm really bummed that we are going to be seeing a return of a lot of the same creeps who gave us the foreign policy of the 90's that went belly up in 2001-03.

Just a reminder: I called attention several times to this article in 2014 and 2015:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/opinion/sunday/are-neocons-getting-ready-to-ally-with-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

But most of the liberal bloggers obediently kept their mouths shut about it.

[Oct 24, 2016] Hillary the Hawk closing in on the White House

Notable quotes:
"... The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes. ..."
"... Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. ..."
"... "Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011. ..."
"... Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war. Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country's Libya policy from start to finish." ..."
"... Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in the Atlantic last summer. ..."
"... Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya. Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war. ..."
"... Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson to Libya or to Syria. ..."
"... The pattern is clear: Hillary Clinton is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under President Obama . Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious interventionism. ..."
Oct 24, 2016 | www.washingtonexaminer.com

Hillary Clinton can change her views in an instant on trade, guns, gay marriage, and all sorts of issues, but she's consistent in this: she wants war.

The Democratic nominee in the final debate reiterated her bellicose stance towards Syria. Combined with her 2003 vote for war in Iraq, and her central role in getting the U.S. into the 2011 war in Libya, Clinton could become the most hawkish candidate elected president in most Americans' lifetimes.

"I am going to continue to push for a no-fly zone and safe havens within Syria," Clinton said Wednesday night. Totally separate from the fight against ISIS, Clinton's "no-fly zones and safe havens" are U.S. military intervention in the bloody and many-sided conflict between Syria's brutal government, terrorist groups, and rebel groups.

Enforcing a no-fly zone is "basically an act of war," Michael Knights, a no-fly-zone expert at the Washington Institute told me in the run up to the Libyan war. Air Force Gen. Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate that a no-fly zone created "the potential of a direct conflict with the Syrian integrated air defense system or Syrian forces or, by corollary, a confrontation with the Russians."

Defense Secretary Ash Carter testified in the same hearing that "safe zones" would require significant U.S. boots on the ground.

So while Hillary says she doesn't want war with Russia or Syria, or boots on the ground in Syria, she pushes policies that the Pentagon says risk war and require boots on the ground.

Hillary showed that same cavalier attitude toward war earlier this decade, laughingly declaring "we came, we saw, he died." This was her version of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" moment, and Libya was her smaller - and less legal - version of Bush's Iraq War.

"Hillary's War," was the Washington Post's headline for a flattering feature on the Secretary of State's central role in driving the U.S. to intervene in Libya's civil war in 2011.

Clinton staff, published emails have shown, worked hard to get Clinton credit for the war. Clinton's confidante at the State Department Jake Sullivan drafted a memo on her "leadership/ownership/stewardship of this country's Libya policy from start to finish."

Sullivan listed, point-by-point, how Clinton helped bring about and shape the war. Before Obama's attack on Moammar Gadhafi, "she [was] a leading voice for strong UNSC action and a NATO civilian B5 protection mission," the memo explained.

Hillary's war was illegal-because the administration never obtained congressional authorization for it-and it was also disastrous. "Libya is in a state of meltdown," John Lee Anderson wrote in the Atlantic last summer.

ISIS has spread, no stable government has arisen, and the chaos has led to refugee and terrorism crises.

Clinton nevertheless calls her war "smart power at its best," declaring during the primary season, "I think President Obama made the right decision at the time."

Yet somehow, through three general election debates, she never got a single question on Libya. Consider that: a former Secretary of State touted a war as a central achievement of hers, is running on her foreign-policy chops, and she is escaping accountability for that disastrous war.

Clinton, of course, also voted for the Iraq War in 2003. She says now she thinks that war was a mistake because it destabilized region. But somehow she doesn't apply that supposed lesson to Libya or to Syria.

The pattern is clear: Hillary Clinton is consistently and maybe blindly pro-war. She is now the clear frontrunner to become our next president. The antiwar movement that flourished under President George W. Bush has disappeared under President Obama . Will it revive under Hillary? Will Republicans have the power or the desire to check her ambitious interventionism.

If Hillary wins big and sweeps in a Senate majority with her, we could be in for four more years of even more war.

Timothy P. Carney, the Washington Examiner's senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected] . His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.

[Oct 24, 2016] Soros-Linked Voting Machines Cause Concern Over Rigged Election

Notable quotes:
"... Obama said back in 2008: "I want to be honest, it's not as if it's just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past. Sometimes, Democrats have, too." ..."
"... hillary goes along with CIA and the neocon/zionist/MIC agenda but she's replaceable. ..."
"... An out of control, above the law, criminal mafia acting on behalf of the Saudis and Israelis (if you think Syria is about the petrodollar or a Qatari pipeline... Think again - it's about Iran and Russia and about Greater Israel and its Leviathan and Golan gas most of all - Zbig et al would prefer to be full battle rattle in Ukraine and Chechnya...) is stopped how? ..."
Oct 24, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
A U.K. based company that has provided voting machines for 16 states, including important battleground states like Florida and Arizona, has direct ties with billionaire leftist and Clinton crusader George Soros.

With recent WikiLeaks emails showing that Hillary Clinton received foreign policy directives and coordinated on domestic policy with Soros , along with receiving tens of millions of dollars in presidential campaign support from the billionaire, concerns are growing that these shadowy players may pull the strings behind the curtains of the upcoming presidential election.

As Lifezette reports , the fact that the man in control of voting machines in 16 states is tied directly to the man who has given millions of dollars to the Clinton campaign and various progressive and globalist causes will surely leave a bad taste in the mouth of many a voter.

The balloting equipment tied to Soros is coming from the U.K. based Smartmatic company, whose chairman Mark Malloch-Brown is a former UN official and sits on the board of Soros' Open Society Foundation.

According to Lifezette , Malloch-Brown was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia and also is a member of the executive committee of the International Crisis Group, an organization he co-founded in the 1990s and built with funds from George Soros' personal fortune.

In 2007 Soros appointed Malloch-Brown vice-president of his Quantum Funds, vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management, and vice-chairman of the Open Society Institute (former name of OSF).

Browns ties also intertwine with the Clintons as he was a partner with Sawyer-Miller, the consulting firm where close Clinton associate Mandy Grunwald worked. Brown also was also a senior advisor to FTI Consulting, a firm at which Jackson Dunn, who spent 15 years working as an aide to the Clintons, is a senior managing director.

When taking that into account, along with the poor track record Smartmatic has of providing free and fair elections, this all becomes quite terrifying.

An astonishing 2006 classified U.S. diplomatic cable obtained and released by WikiLeaks reveals the extent to which Smartmatic may have played a hand in rigging the 2004 Venezuelan recall election under a section titled "A Shadow of Fraud." The memo stated that "Smartmatic Corporation is a riddle both in ownership and operation, complicated by the fact that its machines have overseen several landslide (and contested) victories by President Hugo Chavez and his supporters."

"The Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela are widely suspected of, though never proven conclusively to be, susceptible to fraud," the memo continued. "The Venezuelan opposition is convinced that the Smartmatic machines robbed them of victory in the August 2004 referendum. Since then, there have been at least eight statistical analyses performed on the referendum results."

"One study obtained the data log from the CANTV network and supposedly proved that the Smartmatic machines were bi-directional and in fact showed irregularities in how they reported their results to the CNE central server during the referendum," it read.

With such suspicion and a study which claims to prove that the U.K. firm's equipment tampered with the 2004 Venezuelan recall election, should be enough for states to reject these machines if they desire a fair election.

Smartmatic is providing machines to Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, which means these Soros and Clinton linked machines are going to take the votes of thousands of Americans.

While GOP nominee Donald Trump has been voicing his opinion that the elections are indeed rigged due to media bias, and the proof that mainstream polls are heavily weighted to favor Clinton , it is needless to say that if the results show Hillary as a winner in November, there is going to a mess to shuffle through to find signs of honesty.

MillionDollarBonus_ Ghost of PartysOver Oct 24, 2016 10:57 AM ,

MSNBC are reporting that Hillary is absolutely surging and now leading by double digits! America is going absolutely wild for Hillary!! This is very exciting – I can sense victory, and I see that bitter right-wingers can sense defeat as they pre-emptively blame their loss on vote rigging. There is no such thing as election rigging, unless we're talking about Al Gore losing to Bush – there was clear evidence of rigging during this election. But Republicans are known for rigging elections. Democrats have never, and will never rig an election.

HOW TO FACT CHECK THE LIES AND CONSPIRACY THEORIES OF THE ALT RIGHT

Cliff Claven Cheers BaBaBouy Oct 24, 2016 11:02 AM
We the people ask congress to meet in emergency session about removing George Soros owned voting machines from 16 states

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/we-people-ask-congress-meet-e...

Signed the Deplorably Dicked

DD

Beam Me Up Scotty Cliff Claven Cheers Oct 24, 2016 11:29 AM ,
Two words: PAPER BALLOTS!!! How anyone with 3 brain cells or more can't see that paper ballots are the way to go when voting is beyond me. There is a paper trail, and they cannot be hacked. They can be recounted. Machines are easily manipulated and there is NO PAPER trail to recount. Use paper ballots and tell Gerge Soros to go fuck himself.
Notveryamused Manthong Oct 24, 2016 12:11 PM ,
The Soros voting machine issue is one of the largest problems with this election. Trump has mentioned him by name twice during the debates and has also talked openly about a 'rigged' election. I hope he will address this directly.

We're already seeing the polls skew in Clinton's direction in unusual states like Arizona so even that is on the cards to be stolen.

Mroex Beam Me Up Scotty Oct 24, 2016 11:54 AM ,
Yes you are Damn right. Paper ballots were used in the Brexit vote and surprise surprise the people won

I can wait a day or two for results, I do not need instant results

Paper ballots would be kept under lock and quarded by representives of both parties

then when the time has come they would be counted and verified by both party reps

FUCK any form of voting machine, be it electronic or be it mechanical

fx MillionDollarBonus_ Oct 24, 2016 11:18 AM ,
LOL, not even your big hero Barry would claim that. To wit: Obama said back in 2008: "I want to be honest, it's not as if it's just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past. Sometimes, Democrats have, too."

And this time, it seems to be more than some monkeying on part of Hitlery and Barry. Rather "we rigged some votes and screwed some folks." Go figure.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-22/obama-warned-rigged-elections-b...

AViewFromDublin fx Oct 24, 2016 11:26 AM ,

Speaking at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Million Dollar Bonus said: "To say you won't respect the results of the election, that is a direct threat to our democracy.

"The peaceful transfer of power is one of the things that makes America America.

And look, some people are sore losers, and we just got to keep going" It was actually Hillary Clinton who said that, same difference lol,
War Machine crossroaddemon Oct 24, 2016 11:29 AM ,
You make a good point, and to distill the matter to its essence, apart from a controlled media and well established and entrenched special, foreign and banking interests in DC... The CIA is a CRIMINAL MAFIA acting under color of law, currently taking Saudi money to pay jihadi and 'blackwater' type mercs in Syria, and by the way Yemen, and elsewhere, to include the slow ramp up in E Ukraine.

hillary goes along with CIA and the neocon/zionist/MIC agenda but she's replaceable.

No they can and will steal this election if, in fact, Trump were to get a majority of votes (which by the way is unlikely - study the demographics... trump can not beat hillary when she has 70/80% of women, the latinos, blacks, leftists, and so on) - but the underlying issue remains:

An out of control, above the law, criminal mafia acting on behalf of the Saudis and Israelis (if you think Syria is about the petrodollar or a Qatari pipeline... Think again - it's about Iran and Russia and about Greater Israel and its Leviathan and Golan gas most of all - Zbig et al would prefer to be full battle rattle in Ukraine and Chechnya...) is stopped how?

Considering that US military personnel may quite literally be killed by CIA provided weapons, one might posit that one scenario is CIA personnel being hunted down and arrested (or not) by elements of the US special forces although this doesn't happen without either strong and secure leadership or some paradigm-shifting revelation.

For example- if more knew how exceedingly likely it is that 9/11 was an inside/Israeli job... Knew it... Things might change.

but I'm not optimistic.

hillary means ww3, and we are not the good guys. If we ever were..

Mroex crossroaddemon Oct 24, 2016 11:39 AM ,
Things were way different back when JFK was killed, I know I was around then.

For one thing there was no internet, and people trusted and respected the media (TV and Newspapers) This trust made it very easy to coverup and / or bury details.

People overwhelmingly trusted government officials, Very few people questioned what government and media told them, again this makes it super easy to lie and coverup

I repect your question, and I hope you consider what I said. I am trying to make the case that assasination is no longer an option, not unless they want to truly start a real civil war. Which I would not rule out. But if they wish to keep the status quo and the sheep silent, assasination is way way to risky for the reasons I mentioned above

[Oct 24, 2016] New generation forget about the horrors of previous wars and internationalist idea does not survive the new war first hours, let alone first weeks

Notable quotes:
"... Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. ..."
"... It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France. ..."
"... And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? ..."
"... That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks. ..."
"... Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result. ..."
"... Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were. ..."
"... Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case. ..."
"... the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war. ..."
"... I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When? ..."
"... It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes. ..."
"... If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences. ..."
"... The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.) ..."
crookedtimber.org

bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:46 pm ( 25 )

The case against war was fully developed and strongly argued in the years before 1914 . . .

Was it? I wonder about that.

Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. It is on this point that I think arguments from before the war cannot have the weight the horror of experience must give them. Elite leadership across Europe failed.

It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France.

It is inexplicable, really, unless you can see that the moral and practical case against war is not fully developed between the wars; if there's a critique that made use of experience in its details in the 1920s and 1930s and made itself heard, I missed it - it seems like opposites of such an appreciation triumph.

And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? There's certainly a socialist argument against war, based on the illegitimacy of war's class divisions, which were conveniently exemplified in military rank and reactionary attitudes among the officer class. That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks.

Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result.


bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:47 pm.26

Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were.

Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case.

Without looking it up I recall Barbara Tuchman using the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war.

I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When?

The long effort by reactionary forces to assemble a coalition capable of defeating Napoleon had created in Europe what for a time was called the Concert of Europe. Austria, Prussia and Russia initially cooperated in suppressing liberal and nationalist aspirations and that effort gradually morphed into efforts to harness or channel rising liberalism and nationalism and industrial power.

It was the evolved apparatus descended from Metternich's Congress of Vienna thru Bismarck's Congress of Berlin that made wars brief and generally decisive in regard to some policy end.

The long list of successive crises and brief wars that stevenjohnson references above - often cited as evidence of the increasing fragility of the general peace - could just as well be cited as evidence for the continued effectiveness of the antique Concert of Europe in containing and managing the risk of general war. (Fashoda 1898, Venezuela 1902, Russo-Japanese War 1905, Agadir 1911, Balkan Wars 1911-1912 - it can be a very long list).

It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes.

If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences.

It was one of the mechanisms for peace by international law - the neutrality of Belgium mutually guaranteed by Britain and Germany in the Treaty of London 1839 - that triggered Britain's entry as an Allied Power and general war. There is, of course, no particular reason Australia should have taken an interest in Belgium's neutrality, but it was that issue that seemed to compel the consensus of opinion in favor of war in Britain's government.

The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.)

What I don't find is the alternative lever or mechanism at the ready, put in place by this fully developed argument against war. The mechanism in place was the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by international law (arguably reinforced in the stipulations of the Hague Conference of 1907). If Germany doesn't violate Belgian neutrality, the result in the West at least is stalemate as France and Germany are evenly matched across their narrow and mostly impassable frontier; in the East, Russia must concede to Germany even as Austria must concede to Russia; - instead of a general conflagration, the result is another negotiated settlement of some sort, perhaps arbitrated by Britain or the U.S.

The urgent questions of the day regarding the organization of modern liberal polities in the territories of Ottoman Turkey, Hapsburg Austria and Czarist Russia - what is the strongly argued and fully developed case there? How is the cause of Polish nationalism, or Finnish nationalism or Yugoslav nationalism to be handled or managed without violence and war?

The antique system of a Concert of Europe had kinda sorta found a way by means of short and decisive engagements followed by multi-power negotiation, a pattern that had continued with the gradual emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. But, where was the argument for managing irredentism and nationalist aspiration peacefully?

[Oct 24, 2016] Hillary might be a symptom of degenerate neoliberal aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Gen. Butler book War Is A Racket is still a classic book on the subject

Oct 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

ilsm -> to pgl ... October 23, 2016 at 04:10 AM

Ruling elite has a crook for a candidate appealing to fears and prefers her wars for oil to be with Russia.

DrDick -> ilsm ... October 23, 2016 at 08:54 AM , 2016 at 08:54 AM

More stupidity. First off, the American elite (like all elites) is far from unitary and most of them back Republicans, though they hedge their bets by also supporting centrist Democrats.
ilsm -> DrDick... , October 23, 2016 at 11:25 AM
Greed is a unifier. What they said on SNL opening skit...... Klinton is the republican.
anne : , October 23, 2016 at 05:23 AM
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/790154851682545665

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald

Exploiting Cold War rhetoric & tactics has helped her win the election. I guess the idea is: deal with the aftermath and fallout later.

Katrina vandenHeuvel @KatrinaNation

How does new Cold War-- which ends space for dissent, hurts women & children, may lead to nuclear war--help what Clinton claims she is for?

4:36 AM - 23 Oct 2016

EMichael -> anne... , October 23, 2016 at 05:28 AM
I would submit that there are very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick. Greenwald keeps falling and cannot get up.
ilsm -> EMichael...
Few "will [move the] vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick.

Those "few" were awake during the 80's and see the nuclear/neocon dystopian horror behind Clinton. While Trump mentioned using nukes, Hillary's nuke policy is 'well' laid out by Robert Kagan and the hegemon interests.

Recall Mao said "go ahead......' Nukes are just another form of the pointless body count strategy.

likbez -> ilsm...
Like before WWI, Hillary might be "a symptom of degenerate [neoliberal] aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power." Gen. Butler, "War Is A Racket." is still a classic book on the subject.

See an interesting discussion at

http://crookedtimber.org/2016/10/22/unnecessary-wars/#comments

Here are a couple of comments
== quote ===

greg 10.22.16 at 11:02 pm ( 29 )

All war is for profit. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought for profit. The profit from Iraqi oil and whatever was expected from Afghanistan were irrelevant. Weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban, even Isis, were and are all issues that could have been more efficiently handled, but instead were pretexts to convince the credulous of the necessity of war.

The real profit was the profit taken by the military-political-industrial complex in the treasure and stolen rights of the American people. That is the bottom line for why we went to war, and why we are still there, and why, if our elites persist, we might go to war with Russia or China.

The good news is that, because of the unrelenting depredations by American elites on the treasure and rights of the people, the United States is increasingly unable to wage war effectively. The bad news is that our elites are too blind to see this.

America: Consuming your future today.

====

Peter T 10.23.16 at 8:56 am

faustusnotes

fear of "socialism" – meaning, broadly, greater popular participation in politics – was explicitly a major factor in the German and Russian decisions for war. In both cases, they hoped victory would shore up increasingly fragile conservative dominance. It also underlay British and French attitudes. 1870-1914 was a very stressful time for elites.

1915 was too early for any of the combatants to settle. By mid-late 1916 there were some voices in favour of negotiations, but the Germans would have none of it then or in 1917. By the time the Germans were prepared to talk (mid 1918), they had lost. Fear of socialism was again a major factor in the post-war settlements.

Liberals of today see World War I as the great disaster that shattered the pre-war liberal order. In the same way, the generation post 1815 saw the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as the great disaster that shattered the happy old order. The extent of the damage and loss was much the same in each, although World War I took 5 years to do what the French wars did in 25.

===

Omega Centauri 10.23.16 at 1:13 am ( 33 )

The decision to continue it seems to be a natural consequence of the human proclivity towards doubling down. This operates on many levels, some of which are related to the need for vindication of those involved in the decision to start the conflict.

There is also the horror that if you end a war without achieving something the masses can identify with as victory, then the families of those killed will see that their loved ones died in vain -- for someone else's mistake (very bad for your political future).

And of course if you quit, what is to stop the enemy from extracting reparations or worse from you, because in his eyes, you are the criminal party. Much easier to try yet one more offensive, or to lure a formerly neutral party into joining in and opening up another front, which you hope will break the stalemate.

The thing that appalls me so much about the Great War, is how so many nations were dragged in, by promises of booty . In many ways it resembles the Peloponnisian war, in its inability to allow neutrals to be neutrals.

[Oct 23, 2016] In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that hes been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia

Notable quotes:
"... Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia. ..."
Oct 23, 2016 | www.moonofalabama.org
Terry | Oct 22, 2016 11:28:30 AM | 1
Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia.

Before inciting war with Russia, Schoen worked for Bill Clinton and brokered meeting (for $40,000 a month) between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire oligarchs." http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/09/09/fox-news-analyst-and-clinton-operative-douglas-e-schoen-accepted-millions-of-dollars-to-agitate-for-war-with-russia/

rg the lg | Oct 22, 2016 11:29:52 AM | 2
Personally I don't know if I 'trust' RT any more than I 'trust' American media ... but I do pay attention to both.

Here's an article to get the ball rolling: what is propaganda? Who is guilty of propagandizing news?

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/363737-rt-uk-msm-hysteria-russia/

Of course, I truly think that Telesur is about as balanced as we can get.

[Oct 23, 2016] In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that hes been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia

Notable quotes:
"... Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia. ..."
Oct 23, 2016 | www.moonofalabama.org
Terry | Oct 22, 2016 11:28:30 AM | 1
Just a re-post from the last thread to the new . "In a remarkable conflict-of-interest, Fox News analyst and former Clinton operative Douglas E. Schoen has failed to disclosed to readers that he's been paid millions of dollars from Ukrainian agents to incite a war between the United States and Russia.

Before inciting war with Russia, Schoen worked for Bill Clinton and brokered meeting (for $40,000 a month) between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and billionaire oligarchs." http://www.dangerandplay.com/2016/09/09/fox-news-analyst-and-clinton-operative-douglas-e-schoen-accepted-millions-of-dollars-to-agitate-for-war-with-russia/

rg the lg | Oct 22, 2016 11:29:52 AM | 2
Personally I don't know if I 'trust' RT any more than I 'trust' American media ... but I do pay attention to both.

Here's an article to get the ball rolling: what is propaganda? Who is guilty of propagandizing news?

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/363737-rt-uk-msm-hysteria-russia/

Of course, I truly think that Telesur is about as balanced as we can get.

[Oct 22, 2016] Congress does not declare war, which is its constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war

Oct 22, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Northern Star ,

October 20, 2016 at 11:44 am
Succinct exposure of continuing American psycho militaristic aggression in ME:
"The United States no longer enters wars as we did in earlier eras. Our president does not announce that we have taken up a new cause in a distant land. Congress does not declare war, which is its constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/19/plunges-into-war-with-yemen/STkGyrSwoHiCvIeP2gm6CM/story.html
yalensis , October 20, 2016 at 5:55 pm
But we have always been at war with Eastasia.
Or was that Oceania?
I forget marknesop , October 20, 2016 at 10:17 pm
That's a good piece; reasonable, and well-substantiated. I think a lot of Americans today do not realize what a deliberate and considered process becoming involved in war is supposed to be. He's absolutely correct that the doctrine has evolved from 'advise and consent' to 'it's easier to obtain forgiveness than permission'.

[Oct 22, 2016] Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy

Notable quotes:
"... Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze. ..."
"... In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy. ..."
"... In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent. ..."
"... The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC? ..."
Oct 22, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Jeremn , October 20, 2016 at 8:16 am

Oh, this is good. And the comments.

"Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy.

Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze."

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/stop-this-stupid-sabre-rattling-against-russia/

marknesop , October 20, 2016 at 8:03 pm
Still full of shite, of course – Britain cannot seem to write anything which is not, and it's only a matter of degree. Putin is neither overtly homophobic (I have no idea what his personal beliefs are, which is as it should be, you should not be able to tell) nor belligerent. In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy.

This was meant to be brought about by means of a political coup, because NATO did not want to risk putting it to a vote, although it deliberately exaggerated the broadness of Ukrainian enthusiasm for a European future.

In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent.

yalensis , October 20, 2016 at 5:42 pm

The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC?

Ha ha – This is a good writing!

[Oct 22, 2016] The only way Hillary could be stopped would be if the Republican Party elite stood with Trump, so Soros and the other donor who owns voting machines could be blocked from flipping/fractionalizing votes.

Oct 22, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The only way Hillary could be stopped would be if the Republican Party elite stood with Trump, so Soros and the other donor who owns voting machines could be blocked from flipping/fractionalizing votes. But that isn't happening. Soros machines are in key swing states like Colorado and Pennsylvania, and we already have data from the primary that a good 15% (at least) can be flipped, compared to exit polls/hand counts/paper trail or non-donor machines.

I guess it's still possible, like what happened in the Michigan Democratic primary, that the real numbers are more like a 10% lead for Trump and they come out in force in unexpected locations, and Clinton's small, unenthusiastic base stays home, thus making it too difficult to successfully flip. But I'm trying not to count on something like that, because it seems too close optomism bias driven "poll unskewing" – I mean, the polls clearly ARE skewed in favor of Hillary, but I doubt they're off by 15%.

Stein could never take over the Democratic Party. It isn't even clear to me that the Greens could replace the Democrats, although I do think their massive increase in ballot access this year is a credit to the party and to Stein. That shows real organizing and management effectiveness.

I started this campaign season advocating for purging Clintonians out of the now hollow Democratic Party and taking it over. That still seems like the most efficient path to an actual left national party, in part because our current system is so corrupted and calcified. But I'm not sure it's possible. At this point, I can imagine a cataclysmic revolution happening during Clinton's term more easily than a reformed, citizen friendly Democratic Party.

Is it gin o'clock yet?

[Oct 22, 2016] Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy

Notable quotes:
"... Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze. ..."
"... In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy. ..."
"... In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent. ..."
"... The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC? ..."
Oct 22, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Jeremn , October 20, 2016 at 8:16 am

Oh, this is good. And the comments.

"Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy.

Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze."

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/10/stop-this-stupid-sabre-rattling-against-russia/

marknesop , October 20, 2016 at 8:03 pm
Still full of shite, of course – Britain cannot seem to write anything which is not, and it's only a matter of degree. Putin is neither overtly homophobic (I have no idea what his personal beliefs are, which is as it should be, you should not be able to tell) nor belligerent. In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy.

This was meant to be brought about by means of a political coup, because NATO did not want to risk putting it to a vote, although it deliberately exaggerated the broadness of Ukrainian enthusiasm for a European future.

In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent.

yalensis , October 20, 2016 at 5:42 pm

The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC?

Ha ha – This is a good writing!

[Oct 22, 2016] Congress does not declare war, which is its constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war

Oct 22, 2016 | marknesop.wordpress.com

Northern Star ,

October 20, 2016 at 11:44 am
Succinct exposure of continuing American psycho militaristic aggression in ME:
"The United States no longer enters wars as we did in earlier eras. Our president does not announce that we have taken up a new cause in a distant land. Congress does not declare war, which is its constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/19/plunges-into-war-with-yemen/STkGyrSwoHiCvIeP2gm6CM/story.html
yalensis , October 20, 2016 at 5:55 pm
But we have always been at war with Eastasia.
Or was that Oceania?
I forget marknesop , October 20, 2016 at 10:17 pm
That's a good piece; reasonable, and well-substantiated. I think a lot of Americans today do not realize what a deliberate and considered process becoming involved in war is supposed to be. He's absolutely correct that the doctrine has evolved from 'advise and consent' to 'it's easier to obtain forgiveness than permission'.

[Oct 22, 2016] Israel doesn't have to worry about a stand up fight with the Syrian Army. No, they have to worry about small unit and irregular warfare, inside Israel. That's the kind of spillover a hotted up Syrian "Civil War" would produce

Oct 22, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

ambrit October 21, 2016 at 4:02 pm

Notice that Netanyahu is suddenly "mending fences" with Russia. Could someone have whispered in his ear; "Low yield nuke over Tel Aviv?" It needn't be Russia directly. Say Hizbullah is 'gifted' a Pakistani warhead through some devious back channels. America is running a proxy war in Syria. Nothing says that Russia, or China cannot do something similar.
I see no discussion of spillover effects to Libya's neighbors. Think of the spillover effects attendant to major chaos in Syria!

cocomaan October 21, 2016 at 4:08 pm

It is definitely interesting to me how quiet Israel has been for awhile now.

Spillover from Syria has definitely already begun, right? Just today, the protests in Paris are, I believe, a result of the influx of immigrants.

What the heck is it going to look like when HRC starts bombing and Syria falls into even further disrepair?

ambrit October 21, 2016 at 4:46 pm

Israel doesn't have to worry about a stand up fight with the Syrian Army. No, they have to worry about small unit and irregular warfare, inside Israel. That's the kind of spillover a hotted up Syrian "Civil War" would produce. Say, the Syrians and Russians establish their own "No Fly Zone" over southern Syria, and enforce it against all comers, including the Israeli Air Force. Then supply convoys to Hizbullah in Lebanon would really ramp up. Voila! The Lebanon Israel border heats up by orders of magnitude.
I am convinced that H Clinton does not understand the forces she wants to juggle with.
Where in America would you resettle the millions of refuges from the destruction of Israel?

craazyboy October 21, 2016 at 5:00 pm

Miami. Jewish Heaven. We even overbuilt the condos for this very eventuality.

[Oct 21, 2016] Those who vote for Hillary for the sake of stability need to be reminded that according to the Minsky Theory stability sometimes can be very destabilizing

Oct 21, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com

likbez -> Fred C. Dobbs... October 21, 2016 at 02:12 PM

Please note that Hillary's path to the top was marked by proved beyond reasonable doubt DNC fraud. With information contained in recent email leaks some DNC honchos probably might go to jail for violation of elections laws. So for them this is a death match and people usually fight well when they are against the wall. The same in true about Obama and his entourage.

And while this Nobel Peace Price winner managed to bomb just eight countries, Hillary might improve this peace effort, which was definitely insufficient from the point of view of many diplomats in State Department. Also the number of humanitarian bombs could be much greater. Here Hillary election can really help.

From the other point of view this might well be a sign of the crisis of legitimacy of the US ruling neoliberal elite (aka financial oligarchy).

After approximately 50 years in power the level of degeneration of the US neoliberal elite reached the level when the quality of candidates reminds me the quality of candidates from the USSR Politburo after Brezhnev death. Health-wise Hillary really bear some resemblance to Andropov and Chernenko. And inability of the elite to replace either of them with a more viable candidate speaks volumes.

The other factor that will not go away is that Obama effectively pardoned Hillary for emailgate (after gentle encouragement from Bill via Loretta Lynch). Otherwise instead of candidate to POTUS, she would be a viable candidate for orange suit too. Sure, the rule of law is not applicable to neoliberal elite, so why Hilary should be an exception? But some naive schmucks might think that this is highly improper. And be way too much upset with the fruits of neoliberal globalization. Not that Brexit is easily repeatable in the USA, but vote against neoliberal globalization (protest vote) might play a role.

Another interesting thing to observe is when (and if) the impeachment process starts, if she is elected. With some FBI materials in hands of the Congress Republicans she in on the hook. A simple majority of those present and voting is required for each article of impeachment, or the resolution as a whole, to pass.

All-in-all her win might well be a Pyrrhic victory. And the unknown neurological disease that she has (Parkinson?) makes her even more vulnerable after the election, then before. The role of POTUS involves a lot of stress and requires substantial physical stamina as POTUS is the center of intersection of all important government conflicts, conversations and communications. That's a killing environment for anyone with Parkinson. And remember she was not able to survive the pressure of the role of the Secretary of State when she was in much better health and has an earlier stage of the disease.

POTUS essentially does not belong to himself/herself for the term of the office (although Obama managed to slack in this role; was he on drugs the night of Benghazi killings ? http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/plausible-theory-was-president-obama-high-on-coke-while-benghazi-burned-video)

Another interesting question, if the leaks continue after the election. That also can contribute to the level of stress. Just anticipation is highly stressful. I do not buy the theory about "evil Russians." This hypothesis does not survive Occam razor test. I think that there some anti-Hillary forces within the USA ruling elite, possibly within the NSA or some other three letter agency that has access to email boxes of major Web mail providers via NSA.

If this is a plausible hypothesis, that makes it more probable that the leaks continue. To say nothing about possible damaging revelations about Bill (especially related to Clinton Foundation), who really enjoyed his retirement way too much.

Those who vote for Hillary for the sake of stability need to be reminded that according to the Minsky Theory stability sometimes can be very destabilizing

Jay : October 21, 2016 at 01:36 PM , 2016 at 01:36 PM
When Krugman is appointed to a top government post by Hillary Clinton we will be able to FOIA his pay and attach a value to all the columns "electioneering" Krugman has written.
likbez -> anne...
Anne,

"An intolerably destructive essay that should never have been posted, and I assume no such essay will be posted again on this blog. Shameful, shameful essay."

You mean that voting for the female warmonger with some psychopathic tendencies ("We came, we saw, he died") is not shameful ?

An interesting approach I would say.

I am not fun of Trump, but he, at least, does not have the blood of innocent women and children on his hands. And less likely to start WWIII unlike this completely out of control warmonger.

With the number of victims of wars of neoliberal empire expansion in Iraq, Libya and Syria, you should be ashamed of yourself as a women.

Please think about your current position Anne. You really should be ashamed.

[Oct 21, 2016] I wonder if Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney vote for Hillary

Notable quotes:
"... which may be the story one wishes for. But if there were a spread to compare her win against, it was Bernie who massively beat the spread. I'll leave it as an exercise to others to determine if her unfair advantages were as large as the winning margin. ..."
"... He makes a good point and you dismiss it. You bashed Bernie Sanders and "Bernie Bros" during the primary. Then you lie about it. That's why you're the worst. Dishonest as hell. ..."
"... Remember one thing anne, America is not a country. It is an idea. You cannot arrest it, murder it, or pretend it isn't there. We as a people are not perfect. But Mr Putin is stabbing directly at our democracy, not Hillary Clinton and not Paul Krugman. Time to be a little more objective, of which you are even more capable of than me. ..."
"... It is not exactly McCarthyism as stated (although kthomas with his previous Putin comments looks like a modern day McCarthyist). I think this is a pretty clear formulation of the credo of American Exceptionalism -- a flavor of nationalism adapted to the realities of the new continent. ..."
"... And Robert Kagan explained it earlier much better ... I wonder if Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney vote for Hillary too. ..."
Oct 21, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
point said...

Krugman says:

"...Mrs. Clinton won the Democratic nomination fairly easily..."

which may be the story one wishes for. But if there were a spread to compare her win against, it was Bernie who massively beat the spread. I'll leave it as an exercise to others to determine if her unfair advantages were as large as the winning margin.

Peter K. -> kthomas... , October 21, 2016 at 11:46 AM

"Why do people like you pretend to love Sen Sanders so much!?"

Why do you say he is pretending? What did he write to make you think that?

Are you just a dishonest troll centrist totebagger like PGL.

Peter K. -> to pgl...

What does that have to do with anything?

He makes a good point and you dismiss it. You bashed Bernie Sanders and "Bernie Bros" during the primary. Then you lie about it. That's why you're the worst. Dishonest as hell. Are most New Yorkers as dishonest as you, Trump, Guiliani, Christie, etc?

kthomas -> anne... , October 21, 2016 at 10:59 AM
No. I am a fan of Sen Sanders, and not even he would believe your nonsense. History will not remember it that way. What it will remember is how Putin Comrade meddled. And there is a price for that.

Sen Sanders wanted one, stated thing: to push the narrative to the left. He marginally accomplished this. What he did succeed in was providing an opportunity for false-lefties like you and Mr Putin who seem to think that America is the root of all evil.

Remember one thing anne, America is not a country. It is an idea. You cannot arrest it, murder it, or pretend it isn't there. We as a people are not perfect. But Mr Putin is stabbing directly at our democracy, not Hillary Clinton and not Paul Krugman. Time to be a little more objective, of which you are even more capable of than me.

Peter K. -> kthomas... , October 21, 2016 at 11:48 AM
I agree with Anne and completely disagree with those like you have drunk the Kool Aid. You're not objective at all.
anne -> kthomas... , October 21, 2016 at 12:25 PM
Sen Sanders wanted one stated thing: to push the narrative to the left. He marginally accomplished this. What he did succeed in was providing an opportunity for false-lefties like --- and -- ----- who seem to think that America is the root of all evil....

[ Better to assume such an awful comment was never written, but the McCarthy-like tone to a particular campaign has been disturbing and could prove lasting. ]

Julio -> kthomas... , -1
"America is not a country. It is an idea. You cannot ...murder it..."

[You're trying, with your McCarthyist comments.]

likbez -> Julio ... , October 21, 2016 at 05:24 PM
Julio,

It is not exactly McCarthyism as stated (although kthomas with his previous Putin comments looks like a modern day McCarthyist). I think this is a pretty clear formulation of the credo of American Exceptionalism -- a flavor of nationalism adapted to the realities of the new continent.

cal -> anne... , October 21, 2016 at 11:28 AM
BS, a remarkable.
No, I am sure he will be remembered more than that.

Bernard Sanders, last romantic politician to run his campaign on an average of $37 from 3,284,421 donations (or whatever Obama said at The Dinner). Remarkable but ineffectual. A good orator in empty houses means he was practicing, not performing.

Why does Obama succeed and Sanders fail? Axelrod and co.

Peter K. -> cal... , -1
He was written off by the like of Krugman, PGL, you, KThomas etc.

He won what 13 million votes. Young people overwhelmingly voted for Sanders. He won New Hampshire, Colorado, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, etc. etc. etc. And now the "unromantic" complacent people have to lie about the campaign.

pgl : , October 21, 2016 at 10:05 AM
Josh Barro explains why he used to be a Republican but is now a Democrat:

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-i-left-republican-party-register-democrat-2016-10

He seems to have had it with Paul Ryan and Rubio.

pgl -> pgl... , October 21, 2016 at 10:12 AM
I was enjoying this until:

"I have voted Republican, for example, in each of the past three New York City mayoral races."

Joe Llota was racist Rudy Guiliani's minnie me. How on earth did Josh think he should be mayor of my city.

likbez -> pgl...
And Robert Kagan explained it earlier much better ... I wonder if Victoria Nuland and Dick Cheney vote for Hillary too.

[Oct 12, 2016] The French are major proliferisers of modern weapon systems. They and the Russians have put a lot of weapons out there which are affordable for small States but have the potential even to worry the biggest militaries

Notable quotes:
"... into the field of battle ..."
"... Nirvana in Fire ..."
"... Game of Thrones ..."
"... "The drama was a commercial and critical success, surpassing ten million views by its second day,[4] and receiving a total number of daily internet views on iQiyi of over 3.3 billion by the end of the series.[5][6] Nirvana in Fire was considered a social media phenomenon, generating 3.55 billion posts on Sina Weibo that praised its characters and story-line." ..."
Oct 12, 2016 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

Science Officer Smirnoff October 12, 2016 at 11:58 am

As you recall the French Exocet , a souped-up V1 in respects, has been "out there" a long time.

. . . In the years after the Falklands War, it was revealed that the British government and the Secret Intelligence Service had been extremely concerned at the time by the perceived inadequacy of the Royal Navy's anti-missile defenses against the Exocet and its potential to tip the naval war decisively in favor of the Argentine forces. A scenario was envisioned in which one or both of the force's two aircraft carriers (Invincible and Hermes) were destroyed or incapacitated by Exocet attacks, which would make recapturing the Falklands much more difficult.

Actions were taken to contain the Exocet threat. A major intelligence operation was also initiated to prevent the Argentine Navy from acquiring more of the weapons on the international market.[16]

The operation included British intelligence agents claiming to be arms dealers able to supply large numbers of Exocets to Argentina, who diverted Argentina from pursuing sources which could genuinely supply a few missiles. France denied deliveries of Exocet AM39s purchased by Peru to avoid the possibility of Peru giving them to Argentina, because they knew that payment would be made with a credit card from the Central Bank of Peru. British intelligence had detected the guarantee was a deposit of two hundred million dollars from the Andean Lima Bank, an owned subsidiary of the Banco Ambrosiano.[17][18] wiki

PlutoniumKun October 12, 2016 at 1:09 pm

Yes, and it was an Exocet that put a big hole in the side of the USS Stark in 1987 .

The French are major proliferisers of modern weapon systems. They and the Russians have put a lot of weapons out there which are affordable for small States but have the potential even to worry the biggest militaries.

Much of world history depends on the relative availability of defensive/offensive weaponry. Back when the castle was the apex of military might any local thug with the money to build one could become a lord and rule his little kingdom. Then when cannons became powerful enough to reduce them to rubble empires came back into vogue. When battleships ruled the waves, this allowed the great seagoing nations to dominate, but the invention of the torpedo along with submarines and long range bombers levelled things up for smaller nations such as Japan. Then the aircraft carrier swung things back to empires in the post war years. But now I think high speed sea skimming and ballistic missiles along with long distance torpedoes have swung things back to 'weaker' nations. Even the Houthi's in Yemen seem to have obtained missiles capable of knocking out an ex-US combat vessel.

Mark P. October 12, 2016 at 2:03 pm

The democratization of missile technology is the big military story of the last three decades. Look at, for instance, at how Hezbollah's Sheik Nasrullah kicked off the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict by striking an Israeli warship during a TV presentation. Very slick.

In fac, talking of the USS Stark, all those ships with their big aluminum superstructures will burn down to their waterline when hit. The Emirates even recently banned aluminum in tower buildings recently.

Aluminum's vulnerability didn't matter during the decades of the Cold War when if the Big One started the surface navy wouldn't really do any fighting because it would all be up anyway, and meanwhile smaller groups and nations - especially those with brown skins - didn't have access to serious missile technology.

The big transition point came with the Falklands War when the UK's admirals smartly stood their aircraft carriers beyond range till Margaret Thatcher phoned to Mitterand and intimated that the British might use their Polaris submarine to nuke Buenos Aires unless Mitterand gave up the Exocet codes. Think I'm kidding? Thatcher got the codes; they didn't call her Mad Maggie for nothing.

As for why they're still building surface warships with aluminum superstructures, it's military Keynesianism and everybody would have to be submariners otherwise, which wouldn't be fun..

JohnnyGL October 12, 2016 at 3:39 pm

+1 to this

I think the Pentagon did an analysis under GW Bush about attacking Iran and buried the idea.

I believe this is why Iran made a big dash for surface-to-surface missiles to defend themselves, and DID NOT have to go for nukes. If you've got anti-ship missiles, you can push those carriers far enough out to sea which limits the ability to launch airstrikes.

Plus, with anti-ship missiles, you can put the Persian Gulf on total lockdown and watch the Saudis suffocate. Iran has already been dealing with sanctions for years, so it's no sweat to them!

If the USA ever has an aircraft carrier sunk, the unipolar moment is indisputably over.

Felix_47 October 12, 2016 at 4:59 am

I suspect that for the money put out the Chinese get a lot more defense. In fact, if they are spending 200 billion and we are spending 600 billion we can be sure that they are close to parity. Of course, we are spending a lot more than 600 billion when you add in VA, disability and retirement costs as well as current war outlays. The entire defense industry in both China and the US is obsolete given modern communications and immigration trends anyway. How are you going to bomb Yemen when the excess population in Yemen ends up driving taxis in Washington D.C. or why bomb Syria when all it does is encourage the Syrians to move to the west? What is the difference between a Syrian or Afghan in Idaho or Berlin and one in Damascus or Kabul? The national state is becoming obsolete and military action is powerless against demography.

PlutoniumKun October 12, 2016 at 6:40 am

The key paradox for the US military is that wars are won not by who has the greatest number of tanks, ships or aircraft, but by the country that can put the greatest number of tanks, ships and aircraft into the field of battle . The US has by far the biggest military in the world, but it has also put itself in the position of needing a military a multiple of everyone elses because of the sheer geographical spread of commitments. China's military is tiny and primitive compared to the US, but in reality any war is likely to be geographically limited – to (for example) the South China Sea. China has every chance of being able to match the US in this kind of war.

As for China's blue sea commitments, I actually doubt they have any intention of really pursuing a long range war capacity. The Chinese know their history and know that a military on this scale can be economically ruinous. But there is a naval military concept known as fleet in being , which essentially means that even a theoretical threat can force an enemy to pour resources into trying to neutralise it. China I think is using this concept – continually setting off rumours of new strike missiles, long range attack aircraft, new aircraft carriers, etc., to force the US (aided and abetted by the defence industry) to spent countless billions on phantom threats. Some of these rumours may be true – many I suspect are simply deliberate mischief making by the Chinese, with the serious aim of dissipating America's military strength.

Colonel Smithers October 12, 2016 at 8:09 am

A new theatre for that mischief and dissipation is Africa. My parish has a Nigerian priest. When he's away, we usually get another Nigerian. At supper for the Bishop last Saturday, our priest, an Ibo, and another, a Hausa from Kano, said that many, if not, most Nigerians think Boko Haram is assisted by the US and, to a lesser extent, France as it gives the pair an excuse to maintain troops in the region and keep their client state governments in line.

PlutoniumKun October 12, 2016 at 11:25 am

Whether or not its true, the fact that intelligent people think that way shows everything you need to know about how US and Western soft power has been frittered away the past few years through stupidity and cynicism.

JohnnyGL October 12, 2016 at 3:31 pm

I recall a NYT or WaPo article saying those Iraqis were convinced the US was in bed with ISIS, too.

Is there a pattern here?

readerOfTeaLeaves October 12, 2016 at 11:25 am

+10

Yes, and I still take taxis, so I hear a fair amount of Amharic and other African dialects.

Unsure what the Uber drivers speak.

lyman alpha blob October 12, 2016 at 2:16 pm

Why bomb? Because then Uncle Sugar gets to take their stuff after they all leave their war torn countries. If some of the refugees are pissed off and blow up some people in their new homelands, why that's just a little collateral damage and when has the establishment ever cared about that? It just gives them an excuse to surveil everyone.

Ka-ching! – that's why the bombs.

Mark P. October 12, 2016 at 5:43 pm

What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road?

The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.

The worst is atomic war.

The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.

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.

This world in arms in not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

- that crazy commie madman, Dwight Eisenhower, in 1953 on military Keynesianism.

Christopher Fay October 12, 2016 at 5:17 am

ClubOrlov argues that the difference in military spending between the U. S. and Russia is lessened as our spending is bloated and misspent due to corruption.

The Russians are treating spending as a scarce natural resource. In the U. S. we spend as McCain says like drunken sailors.

http://cluborlov.blogspot.tw/2016/08/a-thousand-balls-of-flame.html#more

PlutoniumKun October 12, 2016 at 7:24 am

I'd be very sceptical that the Russian military somehow avoids the rampant corruption in other parts of the Russian economy.

By necessity, the Russian military has always been parsimonious and has had to get more firepower for its rouble than other wealthier countries. Much of their weaponry is very simple, effective and robust, and Russian tactics are as good if not better than any other major military. However, they've had their white elephants too – their new Yasen Class attack submarines are far too expensive as an example, and poor quality control in manufacturing has meant that many of their more advanced weapons have dubious real world utility. Their large ships are generally a disaster, a complete waste of money (this is why they were buying assault ships from France).

Cry Shop October 12, 2016 at 5:49 am

USA military power is just as great as it has ever been, if not greater. What's changed is the traction it had in forcing alignment from partners who held very little cultural/common ground with the USA.

Biggest factor in that loss of traction is that Russia (and to a lesser extent China) is not exporting revolution anymore. Both China and Russia engage in real politic with limited military power that makes them a far less threatening partner than the USA for any state that is willing to transfer some of the wealth to them that the USA formerly extracted (and usually these new players pay much better price with less interference). Even Vietnam, which has real historical reasons to be Sinophobic, probably fears China less than it does a US Government which attempts to subvert Vietnam's economy through currency dependency. How so Russia, which is no threat to any of Vietnam's interests.

What constrains Russia's power isn't the military, but it's relatively minuscule consumer market. Similarly, China's trade protectionism for semi-finished and finished goods has constrained it's ability to project power to those nations, like Australia, Argentina & Russia, which subsist primarily on raw material exports. China is in a better situation than Russia to change this situation and expand it's power into Europe, though I doubt Xi is the man for it.

fajensen October 12, 2016 at 6:45 am

What's changed is the traction it had in forcing alignment from partners who held very little cultural/common ground with the USA.

I'd claim that the alignment came not so much from US military might but rather from the US offering better terms – at least to "white countries"; plenty of brutal regime change and CIA skulduggery was applied on brown folks, still is, in fact.

Now, it seems to the world that the US have become so bloated with it's own military and perceived cultural/economic superiority that the US offers pretty much nothing in return to anyone, regardless of the favors asked. Everyone are treated as colonies and vassals, except perhaps a few leaders and decision makers (Or maybe it was always like that but now we got the Internet and we know).

This state of affairs pisses people off.

In addition, people are beginning to understand that what is applied to brown people abroad today can happen to them also tomorrow. That in the US world order, everyone who is not an American have no value compared to an American* and can be killed, tortured, disappeared with no consequences what so ever. Because fuck Nόrenberg.

Therefore, everyone else being in some way enemies of the US merely by belonging to another tribe than America, has realized that there is no good thing coming from aligning with America, sooner or later the "military option" or "the regime change" will come out and we will be knifed in the back. Those who can actively resist, those who have the option aligns with other powers, those who cannot do this, will drag their feet and try to avoid direct confrontation, maybe something will show up?

Stupid, weak, nations like Denmark and Sweden go all in with 110% effort on the fantasy that they will be seen as good people with an American core, struggling to claw it's way out, from inside their unworthy un-American bodies and therefore they will be protected – at least for a while*.

*)
Americans themselves are beginning to realize that anyone who isn't rich & covered in lawyers can be fined, jailed or even killed right in the street by the police for basically nothing at all. This is beginning to grate on their understanding of their place in the pecking order. But, everyone still blame Whites, Latinos, Blacks, Feminists identity politics works, keeps the contraption from falling off the road.

This also shows why the silly idea of escape by being super-American will not work: Americans are treated like shit too.

Colonel Smithers October 12, 2016 at 10:04 am

Thank you. I like your point about "stupid, weak nations". French is my second language. English is my third. I watch French TV news most days and visit the place regularly, business and pleasure, and studied there. I am surprised, but may be should not be, at how American France has become / is becoming. Hollande and Sarko, who has American connections by way of his stepmother and half brothers, have made the country a poodle in a way that de Gaulle and Chirac would not. Most French people I know seem ok or indifferent to that. Part of that Americanisation seems to be the English / Americanised English forenames given to French children. I have observed that trend in (western) Germany and even francophone communities well away from the French mainland.

Synoia October 12, 2016 at 12:02 pm

I am reminded of a friend of mine in South Africa, who was somewhat older than s 20 years Olds.

Adolf, my friend, was born before WW II, and the name was quite popular then. It became less popular of after WW II.

OIFVet October 12, 2016 at 11:26 am

Bravo! Sorry but I can't resists linking to an old comment of mine to reinforce the point about stupid and weak nations. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/10/links-101215.html#comment-2501325 .

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the best example of what being a loyal US "ally" entails: corrupt local elites working against their country's own best interests lest they become a target for a color revolution. Meanwhile their much-suffering subjects don't know which way to turn to hide their collective embarrassment.

BRUCE E. WOYCH October 12, 2016 at 12:24 pm

More current samples for your file sir:
(1)
Hungary: MP Questioned Over Fraud Allegations
https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/5715-hungary-mp-questioned-over-fraud-allegations
Published: Wednesday, 12 October 2016 12:31
(2)
Ukrainian Top Officials Involved in Secret Offshore Deals
Published: Tuesday, 04 October 2016 09:00
by Graham Stack
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigations/5691-ukrainian-top-officials-involved-in-secret-offshore-deals
======================
OCCRP: (MORE ARTICLES) https://www.occrp.org/index.php
ORGANIZED CRIME and CORRUPTION REPORTING PROJECT

OIFVet October 12, 2016 at 12:47 pm

My files are bulging to the bursting point. The latest fiasco in Colonia Bulgaria was the election of the new GenSec of the UN. Bulgaria had a leading candidate, until Merkel decided that she wanted Germany to play an outsized role in the UN, and bring EU politics into the UN. Disaster ensued:

So the initial Bulgarian candidate Bokova looked like the ideal choice. Here was a chance for little old Bulgaria to shine on the world stage for the first time in over a millenium, possibly since the Bulgars burst out of Central Asia on horseback. Add this to the background context: it is unprecedented for a country to nominate a candidate officially, a front-runner no less, and then do a public switcheroo before the world's eyes. But that's exactly what Bulgaria did just a week ago. Bokova was dumped and Georgieva spooned up. Disaster ensued, as I predicted it would in previous columns .

Bulgaria lost its once-in-a-millenium chance at shaping the world. As the record shows, Gutteres won.

If Bulgaria were a normal healthy country, the Prime Minister would now resign and the government would fall. Because, it was the Prime Minister's decision to switch candidates. He did so despite knowing that two-thirds of Bulgarian citizens preferred his first candidate. Boyko Borissov is his name, a deeply underachieving dull-witted schemer-survivor in the wooden tradition of the region. A short-fingered Bulgarian if ever there was one. He first came to the fore as the bodyguard of the last Bulgarian Communist leader. That should give you a clue to the man's qualities. So why did Boyko 'switch horses'? Why did he do it?

Brutal, just brutal kick in the butt from the ally's MSM. And that's only one of many reactions. Because even the bosses don't like grovelling toadies. They want to control them, but they will never invite them for an afternoon tea. Particularly a marionette whose mafia ties the Congressional Quarterly wrote about. Not that these organized crime ties are a disqualifier, if anything the US likes that because it makes Borissov easy to control.

At least Merkel's scheming and Bulgaria's humiliation had an unexpected positive effect: Power and Churkin managed to put on a BFF act in front of the cameras and allied to get Gutteres elected as SecGen, while delivering a massive kick in Merkel's ample backside. Takes some doing to get the US and Russia to not only see eye to eye on anything, but to also work in concert. Bravo!

PS This also proves a historical truth: doing Germany's bidding never ends well for Bulgaria. Or for any other nation.

BRUCE E. WOYCH October 12, 2016 at 2:24 pm

OIFVet (compliments) You may need a new file
Somewhere over / under the rainbow
(orchestrated social media unrest)
(1)
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-secretly-created-cuban-twitter-stir-unrest
By ALBERTO ARCE and DESMOND BUTLER and JACK GILLUM Apr. 4, 2014 4:25 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) - In July 2010

(2)
White House denies 'Cuban Twitter' ZunZuneo programme was covert
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/03/white-house-cuban-twitter-zunzuneo-covert
Paul Lewis and Dan Roberts in Washington
Thursday 3 April 2014 14.26 EDT
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hemeantwell October 12, 2016 at 8:36 am

global scenario that the down-to-earth presidents of China and Russia seem to have in mind resembles the sort of balance of power that existed in Europe.

The article floats away here. China and Russia might want to have something that "resembles" that time, but the analogy overlooks the fact that the relatively calm state of affairs - Franco-Prussian war? - on the European continent after Napoleon coexisted with savage colonial expansion. The forms of superexploitation thereby obtained did much to help stabilize Europe, even as competition for colonial lands became more and more destabilizing and were part of what led to WW1.

Now we're in a situation in which superexploitation options are largely gone. Routine profit generation has become difficult due to global productive overcapacity, leading to behavioral sinkish behavior like the US cannibalizing its public sector to feed capital. Since the late 19th century US foreign policy has been organized around the open markets mantra. It may be possible for the Chinese, with their greater options for economy manipulation, to avoid the crashes the US feared from lack of market access. But the current situation on its face does not have anything like the colonial escape valve available in the 19th century.

BRUCE E. WOYCH October 12, 2016 at 12:53 pm

Of course,duplicitous political COPORATISM means systems over a systemic characterized by marked or even intentional deception that is now sustained and even spearheaded by state systems. Many contemporary liberal idealists living in urban strongholds of market mediated comfort zones will not agree to assigning such strong description to an Obama administration. It is too distant and remote to assign accountability to global international finance and currency wars that have hegemonic hedge funds pumping and dumping crisis driven anarchy over global exploit (ruled by market capital fright / fight and flight). To the extent that colonialism or neocolonialism does not actually hold fixed boundary ground is irrelevant, since assets are more differential and flexible needing only corporate law to sustain strict boundaries on possession or instruments that convert to the same power over assets. No one, of course, wants to assess stocks and bonds as instruments of global oppression or exploitation that far exceeds 19th century's crude colonial rule. Recall, however, how "joint stock" corporations first opened chartered exploit at global levels under East and West Trading power aggregates that were profit driven enter-prize. So in reality the current cross border market system of neoliberal globalization is, in fact, a stealth colonialism on steroids. TPP is part of that process in all its stealthy dimensions.

BRUCE E. WOYCH October 12, 2016 at 1:56 pm

(TPP In a Nutshell http://labornotes.org/2016/09/october-all-hands-deck-stop-tpp )

"The TPP is a corporate power grab, a 5,544-page document that was negotiated in secret by big corporations while Congress, the public, and unions were locked out.
Multinationals like Google, Exxon, Monsanto, Goldman Sachs, UPS, FedEx, Apple, and Walmart are lobbying hard for it. Virtually every union in the U.S. opposes it. So do major environmental, senior, health, and consumer organizations.
The TPP will mean fewer jobs and lower wages, higher prices for prescription drugs, the loss of regulations that protect our drinking water and food supply, and the loss of Internet freedom. It encourages privatization, undermines democracy, and will forbid many of the policies we need to combat climate change."

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/09/30/ttp-ttip-map-shows-
how-trade-deals-would-enable-polluter-power-grab
TTP & TTIP: Map Shows How Trade Deals Would Enable 'Polluter Power-Grab'
by Andrea Germanos
The new, interactive tool 'gives people a chance to see if toxic trade is in their own backyard'

John Rose October 12, 2016 at 3:04 pm

From a long range view, 19th Century compitition using black and brown property and lives was an improvement over battling face to face with neighbors. It was an expansion of tribal boundaries, somewhat.
Now, few argue openly (except in presidential debates) against those boundaries encompassing brown and black members of the human race. We engage our ruthlessness less openly in covert operations, corporate predations and financial hegemony.
Even awful behavior can be seen as an advance.

Dead Squashed Kissinger October 12, 2016 at 8:54 am

This is very handy, thanks. However the conclusion stops short of what the SCO is saying and doing. They have no interest in an old-time balance of power. They want rule of law, a very different thing. Look at Putin's Syria strategy: he actually complies with the UN Charter's requirement to pursue pacific dispute resolution. That's revolutionary. When CIA moles in Turkey shot that Russian jet down, the outcome was not battles and state-sponsored terror, as CIA expected. The outcome was support for Turkey's sovereignty and rapprochement. Now when CIA starts fires you go to Russia to put them out.

While China maintains its purist line on the legal principle of non-interference, it is increasingly vocal in urging the US to fulfill its human rights obligations. That will sound paradoxical because of intense US vilification of Chinese authoritarianism, but when you push for your economic and social rights here at home, China is in your corner. Here Russia is leading by example. They comply with the Paris Principles for institutionalized human rights protection under independent international oversight. The USA does not.

When the USA goes the way of the USSR, we'll be in good hands. The world will show us how developed countries work.

BRUCE E. WOYCH October 12, 2016 at 1:26 pm

"RULE OF LAW" up front and personal (again?)
Now why would the USA be worried about global rule of law?
An Interesting ideal. No country above the law.

" US President Barack Obama has vetoed a bill that would have allowed the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks to sue the government of Saudi Arabia.

In a statement accompanying his veto message, Obama said on Friday he had
"deep sympathy" for the 9/11 victims' families and their desire to seek justice for
their relatives.

The president said, however, that the bill would be "detrimental to US national interests" and could lead to lawsuits against the US or American officials for actions taken by groups armed, trained or supported by the US.

"If any of these litigants were to win judgements – based on foreign domestic laws as applied by foreign courts – they would begin to look to the assets of the US government held abroad to satisfy those judgments, with potentially serious financial consequences for the United States," Obama said."
-----------------------
To the tune of "Moma said " by The Shirelles –
.Oh don't you know Obama said they be days like this,
..they would be days like this Obama said

BRUCE E. WOYCH October 12, 2016 at 1:48 pm

One interesting irony is that in Obama's TPP "The worst part is an Investor-State Dispute Settlement provision, which allows a multinational corporation to sue to override any U.S. law, policy, or practice that it claims could limit its future profits."
(source: http://labornotes.org/2016/09/october-all-hands-deck-stop-tpp )
"Though the Obama administration touts the pact's labor and environmental protections, the official Labor Advisory Committee on the TPP strongly opposes
it, arguing that these protections are largely unenforceable window dressing."

Braden Smith October 12, 2016 at 10:07 am

I think you're overstating the Russian military advantage in Syria and Ukraine, while ignoring the real dysfunction in US foreign policy. Key policy thinkers at State and Defense still believe that it's worth the time and effort for the US to project military influence in Syria. This is a policy position entirely driven by Israel's existential concern over Iran. There are no substantial US interests in Syria right now. We aren't actually fighting ISIS, because if we were, we would be targeting the foreign funding coming from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. As a consequence, if we simply withdrew from Syria, Russia would be left propping up a regime that would be fighting an ongoing insurgency against foreign jihadists.

In other words, it would be wasting its time and resources on a pointless fight to build a state in the Middle East (sounds familiar). Russia is the one with a military base in Syria that they need to protect. Let them waste the time and energy defending their military assets.

Instead, the US should be reducing its Middle East footprint and selectively engaging in key diplomatic efforts. The Saudis and the Gulf States are committed to fighting it out with Iran for Middle East influence. There's no reason for us to pick sides in this fight. Let them engage in proxy wars without US military assistance and then, when the time is right, we can offer our role as a neutral broker and negotiate terms that actually benefit our strategic interests.

The reason we can't play this role in the region is because we are so myopically focused on policies that are pro-Israeli. Eliminate Israel's interests from the calculations, and our policies would change dramatically.

NotSoSure October 12, 2016 at 10:37 am

It's a good thing. The US has become that quote in The Dark Knight: "you die a hero or live long enough to become the villain."

Adams October 12, 2016 at 11:43 am

Great article and comments. Surprised there has been no speculation here about what HRC will do with the geopolitical hash created by neo-lib economics and neo-con foreign and military policies. We know what Obama did (not) do with what was really a political mandate. Certainly he has been constrained politically and, perhaps, personally ( shame what happened to those nice Kennedy boys, they had so much "promise.") However, as has been ably pointed out in comments above, his actions where he was not constrained are the flag in the wind. You don't have to be a weatherman .

Hillary, of course, has already shown her colors. There will be no Nobel based on promises and high expectations. She will relentlessly pursue the PNAC programme and the "exceptional, essential nation" fantasy, contra the analysis above. You can take the girl out of the Goldwater, but you can't take the Goldman out of the girl.All that glitters ..

readerOfTeaLeaves October 12, 2016 at 12:05 pm <